In May 1992, because of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the family left Banja Luka, and Ivan, his mother and his brother moved to Opatija, Croatia, while his father was unable to leave. In November 1992, they were reunited and moved to Rijeka. Soon after, in April 1993, Ljubičić went to a tennis club in Moncalieri near Torino, Italy. During the next three years, Ljubičić grew into a promising prospect. He decided to play for Croatia and in 1995 won his first junior championship, becoming the Croatian under-16 champion. The same year, he won his first ATP points and played for the Croatian team in the Winter Cup (European under-16 indoors championship). Pairing up with Željko Krajan, he won the Orange Bowl (the unofficial world under-16 championship). In 1996, the family moved to Zagreb, while Ivan continued his successes. He joined the tennis club Mladost and played in more and more junior ITF tournaments. His biggest success as a junior was reaching the final at Wimbledon, where he was defeated by Vladimir Voltchkov of Belarus after winning the first set. He reached the Australian Open junior semifinal in 1997 and won the Eddie Herr tournament, which made him the No. 2 junior in the world. In early 1997, he started training with the Italian professional coach Riccardo Piatti. His successes continued: quarterfinals of the junior French Open, and first steps of entering professional tennis. He turned professional in 1998 and played in the final of the ATP Challenger in Zagreb, where he lost to former French Open finalist Alberto Berasategui. He played a number of smaller tournaments the same year, but had little success and finished the year ranked No. 293. In 1999, he won two Futures tournaments, as well as a Challenger in Besançon, France. He won two more victories in the qualifications for the Casablanca Tour event, where he was defeated by Juan Carlos Ferrero. He then entered the Super 9 tournament in Monte Carlo (today's Monte Carlo Masters), where he reached the third round after an amazing run in which he defeated Andrei Medvedev and Yevgeny Kafelnikov. He also played in the Croatia Open in Umag, where he was eliminated in the semifinal by Magnus Norman. He finished the year ranked world No. 77. In 2000, Ljubičić played in two semifinals (Sydney and Båstad) and three quarterfinals (Marseille, Copenhagen, and Brighton).