Ivanisevic begins his new life as a winner

An exotic surrogate Englishman named Goran Ivanisevic yesterday came off a night without sleep or pain and shaved off his beard, rather as though Zorro might take off his mask. He then left a parting gift for the nation which, for at least most of the time, warmly backed his stunning march on the Wimbledon title.

Before flying off by private jet to his still rapturously celebrating native city of Split on the Adriatic, he offered what could prove telling advice to England's native son and hero, Tim Henman, who seemed to have the new champion by the throat before rain interrupted their semi-final match last Friday night.

The burden of his message to the man who came so close to wrecking one of the most stirring redemption songs ever sung in any corner of sport could be summarised easily enough.

Henman could win Wimbledon as a perfectly mannered son of the English middle class – just as Ivanisevic did as the front man for his famous posse of rival and often outrageous personalities.

If the new champion could do crazy, Henman must do nice.

"Tim," said Ivanisevic, "is a good player and he can win Wimbledon but he should be himself. I saw him on the film of our match and he was punching the air and going a little bit crazy – and it was not him. He shouldn't read the papers and try to follow all the advice he's given by everybody. He had a good Wimbledon and he came closer than ever before. I admit I was lucky against him, when the guy said, 'it's raining, let's go home.' That gave me a second chance and I took it.

"But Tim will get more chances if he played as well as he did this year. I know how well he played. He got very close. But he should remember who and what he is. He shouldn't believe that he needs to change himself. He's too nice to act crazy. He should play to his strengths. I have a certain temperament and things build up and I have to let them out out. If I don't, I break. But Tim isn't like that. He doesn't need to be."

But if Ivanisevic urged Henman to stay true to his own nature, he also accepted that his own behaviour might have to be modified in line with his new status as a Wimbledon champion – and an automatic member of the All England club. "They gave me a tie – and I can go there any time I like and have a cup of tea. It's so nice. But maybe I'll have to behave a bit better when I go there. Maybe I can't be so crazy."

The new champion also suggested he might help spread the game into the inner cities of Britain when he was asked about women's champion Venus Williams' demand for $200,000 (£140,000) to help the Lawn Tennis Association in a similar project. "Maybe I will do it for free," said Ivanisevic. "I like playing with kids, they are very honest and when I was young in Croatia and had nothing I would have enjoyed the chance to play with a champion. During my career I have helped with charity, but up to now I haven't had much time to work with kids, back home in Croatia or anywhere."

He refused to detail any plans to donate part of his £500,000 Wimbledon winnings to charitable causes. It was part of his private affairs, as was his romance with the beautiful model Tatiana. She was not at Wimbledon to see his final triumph, but she will be on the boat which Ivanisevic plans to sail out of the old Roman harbour of his hometown later this week. The yacht is named Veselka after his grandmother.

His mother did not accompany his father Srdjan, a university teacher who has suffered, close up, through the extremes of his son's career despite a serious heart condition, to Wimbledon. Nor did Tatiana. "I cannot have a girlfriend at Wimbledon. I cannot worry if she is happy. I have my thing to do. But she will be on the boat. My mother was at the three losing finals and it was too much," said Ivanisevic. "When I finally won she was probably locked in the bathroom. But she will be out of there for the celebrations. They will be great, the best sports celebration in my country since Croatia finished third in the World Cup. They say the streets of Split are already blocked. I'm very proud. It is the best thing in my life."

How, you wondered this rainy London lunchtime, did the miracle happen? Did he wake up one morning and see a vision as he watched Teletubbies in his Wimbledon apartment? "You know I started every match in this Wimbledon an underdog? No one expected me to do anything, and maybe I didn't. But I kept winning games and when I lasted the first week, beating [Andy] Roddick [the highly rated American teenager], I did feel great. I thought, 'maybe something can really happen.'

"I don't want to think about what I would be feeling like now if it had happened as people expected, if I had lost in an early round. I supposed I would have just kept on playing, trying to turn things around. But now I read in the newspaper that I have gone to 16 from 128 in the rankings. Man, it is a dream. I will play in the Masters in Sydney in November and then I probably will have an operation on my shoulder – in good time for Wimbledon next year. Who knows what can happen next."

There was no talk of a multiple personality yesterday. The 911 guy, the brain controller, produced with something like comic genius by Ivanisevic by way of explanation of his relatively nerveless victory over Roddick, had slipped back into the mists of a fortnight in which a legend of sport was shaped, joke by joke, crescendo by crescendo until the unforgettably climactic moment when Ivanisevic crossed himself and slid in ecstasy on to the grass of the Centre Court on Monday afternoon.

The removal of his beard when he came in "from some bar-restaurant which was very nice" at 6.20 was, he suggested, a symbolic touch. He could change a lot in his daily life now. Superstitions, like the 911 guy, could simply fade away. It was, after all, a new life. It was the life of a winner.