Goran Ivanisevic and Goran Prpic to celebrate 30th anniversary of Umag Open
Established in 1990, the ATP Tour included the new countries that didn't have the opportunity to stage the world's leading tennis players before. Yugoslavia was among those and they choose Umag as the perfect destination for their inaugural ATP event. Located on Croatia’s Istrian peninsula, Umag is one of the most beautiful places on the Adriatic coast and it has always been the favorite stops in the calendar for many players, including Thomas Muster and Carlos Moya. The home players Goran Ivanisevic and Goran Prpic had led the first edition and they reached the final, with Prpic prevailing 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 to become the inaugural Umag champion.
The 30th edition of the Plava Laguna Croatia Open Umag will take place between July 15-21 and, as usual, the crowd will have the opportunity to see some exciting exhibition matches to keep themselves entertained in between serious battles for the ATP trophy. On July 17, Ivanisevic will face Patrick Rafter in the repeat of that famous 2001 Wimbledon final that Goran won 9-7 in the fifth set on "People's Monday." Four days earlier, Ivanisevic and Prpic will compete against each other to celebrate a significant anniversary and that first Umag final from 29 years ago.
Prpic is a former top-16 player who had the opportunity to play against the players like Mats Wilander, Boris Becker, Ivan Lendl, Thomas Muster, Stefan Edberg, Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras and others, winning Olympic bronze medal in Barcelona with Ivanisevic to deliver the first medal for Croatia after gaining independence.
“My memories of the year 1990 and Umag will never fade away. That was my only ATP title and I believe that the tournament, which is celebrating such an impressive anniversary this year, could not have kicked off better than with the final between the two homegrown players. I am always happy to return to Umag and I am especially pleased that I will be an active participant in this anniversary edition of the tournament,” said Goran Prpic.
“This is an excellent way of celebrating the 30th edition of the tournament in Umag. In those days, both Prpa and I played a number of matches on the Tour and he won most of them. There are many things that we share together, from Umag and Barcelona to all those Davis Cups… I believe people in Umag will be happy to remember that first final through this exhibition match,” said Goran Ivanisevic.
from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/2I7A8jz
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