Croatia won the ARAG ATP World Team Championship title for the first time Saturday, beating defending champions Germany 2-1 at the Rochusclub.

Ivo Karlovic and Ivan Ljubicic won their singles rubbers to make Croatia only the eighth nation to hold Davis Cup and Dusseldorf titles at the same time.

For only the eighth time in the 29-year history of the World Team Championship the reigning Davis Cup champions also won the Dusseldorf title.

With Mario Ancic struggling with a stiff back, Croatia replaced the 22-year-old with Karlovic.

The giant Croat came back from a 3-0 second set deficit to beat Alexander Waske of Germany 7-6(5), 6-4 in 89 minutes.

Waske was also a late replacement, following the withdrawal of Philipp Kohlschreiber with a back injury. He had previously beaten Karlovic twice at Challenger level (2001-Puebla; 2003-Lubeck).

Ljubicic, ranked No. 5 in the INDESIT ATP Rankings, made it 2-0 to Croatia winning his third career meeting over Nicolas Kiefer 6-4, 6-4. 

The doubles rubber was completed in the Ice Stadium, with Michael Kohlmann and Alexander Waske winning their fourth rubber this week. The Germans beat Karlovic and Ljubicic 7-6(3), 6-3.

Afterwards Ljubicic said: “It’s a fantastic achievement to win the ARAG WORLD TEAM CUP, especially after winning the Davis Cup [over the Slovak Republic in December].

“We showed everybody that even on clay we can play well. We are a fantastic, very young team – I am the oldest at age 27.

“I think we have other good years to come and we hope we can repeat some of these performances.”

Germany No. 1 Kiefer said: “We had a super week here and made it into the final – hardly anybody had thought we would achieve that. In the end we did not win. A pity, actually…”

Croatia reached the 1985 final losing to Germany, while Germany has four titles (1989, 1994, 1998, 2005).
Both countries emerged from their round robin groups undefeated 3-0, this week.