The legend of Croatian tennis Nikola Pilic, several times champion of the Davis Cup as captain and one of the first Mentors of Novak Djokovic, died at 87, announced on Tuesday (23) the Croatian tennis federation.
“One of the biggest players and coaches that Croatian tennis has already produced” died on Monday in Opatija in western Croatia, specified the entity in his statement.
Pilic began his career in 1953 in Split and just four years later he was already playing on the junior team of Yugoslavia.
Won the Yugoslavia Championship on five occasions in the simple mode (1962, 1963, 1964, 1966 and 1967) and seven in pairs.
The biggest achievement of his career was playing the Roland Garros final in 1973, which lost in three sets to Romanian Ilie Nastasis.
He also won the US Open in pairs along with the Frenchman Pierre Barthès in 1970.
After hanging the racket, Pilic was a coach of several tennis stars such as Goran Ivanisevic, Michael Stich and Boris Becker.
He also had a great influence on Djokovic, who qualified him as a “father in tennis.”
In 1999, Djokovic’s first coach Jelena Gencic sent the then young Novak to train at the Pilic Academy in Munich, where Serbian was able to improve his game.
“Nikola Pilic will remain in memory as the only captain who led three different countries to win the Davis Cup,” said the Croatian Federation, referring to titles with Germany (1988, 1989 and 1993), Croatia (2005) and Serbia (2010).
