Ivanisevic dedicates victory to friend Petrovic

Croatian wildcard Goran Ivanisevic realised a dream at Wimbledon on Monday by beating Australian Pat Rafter 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 2-6, 9-7 in the final.

"I don't know if it's a dream and I'm going to wake up and someone is going to tell me you didn't win Wimbledon again," Ivanisevic said after being presented with the cup.

The 29-year-old, ranked 125 in the world and a losing finalist three times here, thanked the organisers of the tournament for his victory.

"I want to thank the All England Club first for giving me a wildcard or I couldn't have done it," he said.

"I was so tight -- there were so many match points...(the racket) felt like it weighed 50 pounds," he said.

"I came here and no-one even talked about me and now I am holding the trophy.

"I was three times a loser here so I have to thank my father. His heart would definitely have exploded if I had not won."

Ivanisevic, who burst into tears after winning, said he wanted to dedicate the victory to his friend Drazan Petrovic, a New Jersey Nets basketball player who died in 1993.

Petrovic was Croatia's brightest basketball star who won two European Championships with Cibona Zagreb in the 1980s, then moved to Real Madrid before moving to the NBA.

In the NBA he played for Portland Traliblazers and New Jersey Nets.

Petrovic died in a car crash in Germany in 1993, a year after he took the newly-independent Croatian national team to a silver Olympic medal in Barcelona (lost to first U.S. dream team).

Ivanisevic said at the time Petrovic's death really shook him up and he has a poster of him in his London flat this year.

"If you are watching up there, rest in peace," he said on Monday.

Rafter, who also lost last year's final to Pete Sampras, said the match had been anybody's to win.

"It was just one of those matches that could have gone either way and it went Goran's way. Someone had to lose and I was the loser again.

"The atmosphere was fantastic and this is what we play tennis for."

Thousands of Australians had queued all night for tickets to the match, delayed until Monday because of rain.

"It was a great match for Goran. I was one of the culprits who'd written him off a while ago, but he's come back and shown us he's playing great tennis so ... well done to him," Rafter added.