Luka Mikrut makes his childhood dream come true and at the same time honors the memory of his deceased father.
The 21-year-old, who is “playing the best tennis of his life,” recently climbed to career-high No. 159 in the PIF ATP rankings, thanks in part to his two ATP Challenger Tour trophies earned in the past three months. He also reached the final of the Valencia Challenger in his most recent outing, extending his run to 19 wins in his past 22 matches.
However, Mikrut does it without his father Mijo, who died in 2023.
“He had serious cancer,” Mikrut told ATPtour.com. “He was sick for a year. When they first found out what it was, they told him maybe one or two months. He extended it to a year. But it was very difficult. These situations really hit hard.”
“Even before he died, he was very ill and when you’re younger you don’t think about it. But when this happens in the family you start to think about it a little bit and that’s not easy.”
Mikrut fondly remembers the days when he and his father traveled to tournaments together, with Mijo meticulously handling every detail, from organizing the coaching plan, booking flights and more. Now Mikrut handles that aspect alone. Mikrut’s life on the road has not been the same without his father, whose absence he felt deeply during competitions shortly after his death.
“One day it was his funeral and the next day I went to a tournament and the day after that I played,” Mikrut said. “I didn’t have a chance to do anything.”
There was a moment last year when the emotions returned.
“When I played the Davis Cup for the second time, I was there and at one point it sounded: ‘He doesn’t know it’s Davis Cup time, it’s in Croatia’,” Mikrut said. “It’s hitting hard.”
But to understand Mikrut is to know his resilience. A fitting quote from his favorite movie, Rocky V, is even engraved on his right bicep: “It’s not how hard you hit. It’s how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward, how much you can take and keep moving forward.”
Those words are a source of strength for Mikrut, who said the tattoo was the most painful of the seven he practices.
“Every drop of ink was worth it,” he said, laughing. “Sometimes I remember it and it gets me going, gets me hyped and gives me that extra energy I need to win. You see Rocky in every movie, he gets beat a lot and somehow he wins it. Sometimes, actually a lot of times, that’s how it is in tennis.”
Born in Split, Croatia’s second largest city, Mikrut started playing tennis at the age of five. His tennis fanatic grandmother owned video tapes and DVDs of classic matches by Roger Federer and Pete Sampras, among others. Mikrut’s mother owned a DVD store in the 2000s. Although DVDs have been largely forgotten, those tennis films hold a special place in Mikrut’s heart.
“It’s a bit nostalgic. I used to watch that all day and since I was young, I would put the [headband] around my head and pretend I’m Federer,” Mikrut said. ‘I don’t look at it anymore, but we still have the player and the tapes. I have one video of Federer and Agassi at the US Open, I don’t know what year, but I watched it all day, every day.”
Mikrut honed his game at Tennis Klub Split, a renowned breeding ground for Croatian talent that has produced stars such as Goran Ivanisevic and Mario Ancic. Dino Prizmic, a contender for the Next Gen ATP Finals presented by PIF, also trained there. There is a proud tennis legacy in Split, the birthplace of the late Nikola Pilic, who passed away in September.
“We are not a big country, there are not many of us who practice tennis compared to other countries such as Italy, France or the United States, but we are achieving good results,” Mikrut said.
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