Every day of the Kids’ Week we had around 50-odd children out on the court, hanging out with some of the biggest names of this year’s Plava Laguna Croatia Open Umag, including last year’s finalist Andrej Martin, Croatia’s Ivan Dodig and Nino Serdarušić, and Brazil’s Rogério Dutra Silva, while Goran Ivanišević’s arrival was the surprise left for the last day.
The legendary tennis player arrived to ATP zone friday morning in good spirits, only to see the children impatiently waiting for him to kick off this year’s last Kids’ Week event. As usual, they arrived there an hour early to warm up and prepare for the match with their toughest opponent yet. The children patiently took turns at the net exchanging balls with Goran, and then three of them were given a chance to play with him in a “real” doubles match.
Croatia’s only Wimbledon champion was joined by Viki, while Thomas and Diego stood on the opposite side of the net. The tight match was eventually won by Viki and Goran. In a show of sportsmanship, their opponents congratulated them, and then all of the event’s participants posed for a joint photo.
All kids did their best to shine in front of Ivanišević and he agreed with program manager Giancarlo Šegon that there just might be a new Goran among them.
