NEW YORK -- Two days after he won Wimbledon, the hometown hero was engulfed by a delirious riot in Split, Croatia.

	Goran Ivanisevic, of Croatia, falls back as he returns a shot to Justin Gimelstob on Friday at the U.S. Open.

"I looked at the crowd," Goran Ivanisevic said later, "and thought: 'What is this? Who else is coming? Where are the Beatles?' "

And so, Ivanisevic -- a left-hander in a hopelessly right-handed world -- did what anyone else would in front of nearly 200,000 seriously mad fans in a city of just more than 300,000. He took all his clothes off. Well, everything except his underwear.

The party went on for four days before Ivanisevic finally went to sleep. He spent much of the next 10 days in bed and when he woke up he discovered it hadn't been a dream: After reaching three Wimbledon finals and failing to win the title, after descending into the depths of minor-league tennis, Ivanisevic was a Grand Slam champion.

"Today my life changes," Ivanisevic said after he defeated Patrick Rafter 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 2-6, 9-7 in the riveting Wimbledon final. "Finally I am the champion. Now people are going to look at me differently. I am going to look at myself differently."

The crowds at the National Tennis Center always have embraced the eccentric Ivanisevic, but through two rounds now they have loved the 29-year-old to death. On Friday, Ivanisevic returned the favor when he took apart American Justin Gimelstob on the grand stage at Arthur Ashe Stadium, 6-3, 6-3, 6-3.

When Ivanisevic ended the match with an emphatic 121-mph ace -- he had 24 aces in the match -- many in the stands jumped to their feet.

"New York is nice," Ivanisevic said after the match. "You have to deal with everything, anything. Is action city, never sleeps. Everything is so quick. Three weeks of that is enough. After that, you hit the wall."

Ivanisevic is not among the favorites here, but the same was true at Wimbledon.

"If I pass the week, it's great thing," he said. "If I do, all things are possible."

Split personality
The tattoo that defines his schizoid self rests neatly behind his right shoulder: roses and a shark resting on a cross.

"A cross is a cross," Ivanisevic has explained. "A rose, which means love. And a shark, which is a mean, mean animal. All together, it is me."

Ivanisevic has long been one of the great interviews in sport. He has an excellent command of the English language and a wonderfully skewed sense of humor. During Wimbledon, he developed some new characters for the fawning media -- Good Goran (self-explanatory), Bad Goran (ditto) and 911 Goran (for emergencies only). Usually, when athletes refer to themselves in the third person the effect is cloying; Ivanisevic's running monologue about his alter-egos was original and hilarious.

It was also true. Ivanisevic always has struggled to control his emotions; over the years he has been viewed as a highly strung choker. Before this year, the highlights of Ivanisevic's career were three losses -- all in the finals at Wimbledon, a slick surface that was made for his powerful serve-and-volley game. He lost to Andre Agassi in the 1992 final and to Pete Sampras in 1994 and 1998.

Ivanisevic had led the ATP in aces five different times, averaging well more than 1,000 per year. But by 2000 his serving shoulder was worn out. The best he could do was reach the quarterfinals at Marseille and his ranking dropped to No. 129, his lowest since he turned professional in 1988.

No longer an automatic qualifier for major tournaments, Ivanisevic was left to play the challenger circuit and coax wild cards from tournament directors who remembered him fondly. Instead of playing this year's Australian Open, Ivanisevic found himself playing Michael Llodra in the challenger final at Heilbronn, Germany. He lost.

"When you take the practice balls, you have to give $10," Ivanisevic explained. "If you don't give the balls back, they take your $10. You can't get a towel, only if you play a match. It's pretty low. It's like a wake-up call."

	Goran Ivanisevic celebrates moments after winning the Wimbledon championship.

Ivanisevic was grateful when Wimbledon extended a wild-card entry to the three-time finalist. He made the most of it, blowing through the field -- including favorite son Tim Henman in a wrenching, rain-interrupted semifinal -- to land in the finals, which were pushed to Monday. With the 10,000 raucous fans, who camped out overnight to secure unreserved Centre Court seats, the event resembled a soccer match.

Three times, Ivanisevic held a match point against Rafter and three times he failed. Before the fourth, Ivanisevic, tears in his eyes, prayed one more time. "God, please. You are testing me enough. Not four match points." When Rafter dumped a second serve into the net, Ivanisevic was the champion.

"When I came here, nobody even talked about me," Ivanisevic said. "Now, I'm holding this trophy."

Now, of course, everybody is talking about Ivanisevic.

Although his shoulder will require rotator cuff surgery after the season, somehow Ivanisevic, with the help of painkillers, is holding it all together. He has won eight of his 11 matches on American hard courts. Two of his three losses are to No. 1-ranked Gustavo Kuerten, who he would meet again in the Round of 16 if he can get past Albert Costa in the third round.

The dream of his life realized, Ivanisevic is well on his way to accomplishing Dream No. 2: playing with his favorite soccer team, Hajduk Split, the reigning national champions after knocking off arch-rival Dinamo Zagreb. After Wimbledon, he was signed to a playing contract.

"My dream was to play five minutes in one game," Ivanisevic said. "I going to get my chance I think.

"I'm going to be even more nervous because is not my sport. When they going to give me the ball, I going to get rid of the ball straightaway, just give it to the closest guy next to me -- even if he's from the other team."

Greg Garber is a senior writer for ESPN.com.