He stunned Roger Federer at the ATP tournament in Basel before becoming his coach 12 years later

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Roger Federer dominated at the Swiss Indoors tournament in Basel over the years.

Federer won the title in Basel a record 10 times, and won it in back-to-back years on six occasions, something that last year’s champion Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard has already failed to do.

The prestigious tournament in Basel is one of the first ATP events Federer played, making his debut in 1998 as a 17-year-old.

Federer was beaten in his first match by eight-time Grand Slam champion Andre Agassi, in one of his few career defeats at his home tournament.

Ivan Ljubicic stunned Roger Federer at the Swiss Indoors in 2003

Although Federer won the Swiss Indoors 10 times and only lost nine of his 81 matches at the tournament, he did not win his first title until 2006.

The last match he lost in Basel before winning his first title was in 2003, when he suffered a surprise defeat in the second round.

As the second seed, Federer was expected to reach the final, but instead lost to world number 47 Ivan Ljubicic.

Ljubicic is the lowest ranked player ever to beat Federer in Basel, and the last not to beat him in a final.

This was actually the third and last time that Ljubicic would beat Federer, but their careers would become more intertwined than they would ever have imagined.

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Although he would never beat Federer again, Ljubicic’s best career moments were yet to come and he would reach a career-high ranking of world number three in 2006.

Ljubicic would win a total of 24 singles titles including Indian Wells, before retiring from professional tennis in 2012.

As many players do after retiring, Ljubicic would turn to coaching and started working with Milos Raonic in 2013.

This would bring Raonic some of the best results of his career at the time, but Ljubicic would leave the Canadian in December 2015 to join Federer’s team by replacing Stefan Edberg.

This coaching partnership would get off to a tricky start, but after just two tournaments together Federer underwent knee surgery and would only play seven events in total in 2016.

At this point, Federer had not won a Grand Slam title since 2010, but that all changed in 2017 when he returned to tennis after six months out of action due to the knee injury.

Not only would he win the Australian Open in his first tournament back, but Federer would also win a record eighth Wimbledon title.

These were two of the three Grand Slam titles Federer won under Ljubicic’s guidance, with the third and final coming at the Australian Open in 2019.

Although he would never win another major tournament, Federer would win more ATP titles and fittingly the final of those came at the Swiss Indoors in Basel in 2019.

That was also Federer’s last appearance at the ATP 500 tournament, as he finished on a high with a historic 10th title.

Federer retired from tennis in 2022, with Ljubicic remaining by his side until his last ever match at the Laver Cup.