Croatia's Goran Ivanisevic celebrates breaking serve against Richard Krajicek in the fourth set of his semifinal match. (Reuters)

Disaster, though, always seem to find him.

Or, rather, it seems to find his head.

Ivanisevic has the most-examined head in men's tennis, and never has it been under such scrutiny as at this Wimbledon, where the 26-year-old Croatian is trying to resurrect a sinking career with a stunning run to the final. Pete Sampras, his opponent Sunday, has had much to say about the state of Ivanisevic's head. So, too, has Richard Krajicek, who lost to Ivanisevic in a marathon semifinal that was most remarkable not for its fifth-set score (15-13), but rather the fact that Ivanisevic's head did not spin off his body around the 21st game, and go rolling off the court.

From his perch in the BBC television booth, former champion Boris Becker also has had a few things to say about Ivanisevic's head, or at least his history of mental errors, and his observations are not very complimentary.

Mostly, though, the examination of Ivanisevic's head has been a self-examination. Ivanisevic likes to talk about his psyche. It usually goes something like this:

"I need my head."

"I don't know what's wrong with my head."

"My head is not here."

Or, as he said at the U.S. Open last fall,

"I do not play well without my head, I think."

Ivanisevic not only likes to talk about his head, he likes to talk to it, particularly in the middle of a match. Sometimes, he'll yell at himself until his head starts spinning, which generally proves to be detrimental to his game. Sometimes, too, he'll start telling his head how sorry they should feel for each other, and that, again, rarely proves helpful on the court. Mostly, though, he tells his head what it should be doing. Unfortunately, he's usually too late.

This Wimbledon has been different. According to Sampras, "Goran has been playing with his head." According to Krajicek, "Goran's head seems to be there this year." And according to Ivanisevic himself — this Wimbledon has been something of a miracle.

"I have only had five seconds [of] blackout this week," Ivanisevic announced Friday, sounding like a proud child. "That was all the blackouts I have for this week. . . . I'm really keeping my mind well."

At no time did Ivanisevic do a better job of keeping his head than in the fifth set against Krajicek. Already, Ivanisevic had lost his head in the fourth set when he had two match points and blew them both. After that, Ivanisevic said, he figured that everyone at Centre Court was expecting a collapse. Heck, even he expected it. After all, his head does not usually behave in situations like that.

"Every time when I am cool like this — when I don't talk, when I don't throw the rackets — I always wait for one moment when I will explode," he said after Friday's match. "But today, what can I say. . . . I just didn't want to talk, you know. I just said, 'Okay, now you're going to be cool, you're not going to talk too much, you're not going to talk at all, and just keep your mind.'

"I was just very mentally today very strong," he continued. "I was never like this in my life!"

Now, Ivanisevic needs to keep his head for one more match, if he wants to have a chance of beating Sampras, who is playing so wonderfully that it would take a tremendous effort to stop him from winning a fifth Wimbledon crown.

"I have to keep up, and not let my mind go away," Ivanisevic said, when asked his game plan. "Because if I let my mind for one just one second fly away, [Sampras] gets on you, and then it's very tough."

Ivanisevic, though, thinks the upset can happen. He's a superstitious man, and all his planets appear to be aligned. He's been playing the same two Croatian songs before every match. He's been keeping with a weird ritual, taking a trip around the shower in the men's locker room before using it, and refusing to use any shower save for the correct one. And he has trained the new ball boys and ball girls at the All England Club to return to him the "lucky ball" he selects every match and then uses, serve after serve after serve, until the umpire calls for new balls and he has to start the process all over again.

"I think it's time for things to change on Sunday," he said. "I think this time I have the very best chance."

And if omen-obsessed Ivanisevic needed any further reason to believe that things have fallen into place for him, he received it Saturday evening. Throughout this tournament, Ivanisevic has compared his success to the surprising run of his countrymen in the World Cup. "They win, I win," he said after Croatia advanced to the quarterfinals on the same day he qualified for the semis here. "I think we can do it together."

Saturday night, Croatia stunned Germany in the quarterfinals with a 3-0 victory. Now, it's highly unlikely that Ivanisevic kept his head during that match, given his general level of excitability. Sunday, though, will be another story. The soccer team won, now it's his turn.

And, as Ivanisevic pointed out when he first arrived at Wimbledon, "Who knows what I can do if I have my head?"