Croatian Ivo Karlovic makes it to the quarterfinals at BNP Paribas Open
Ivo Karlovic of Croatia eased past Spaniard Albert Montanes 7-6, 6-2 on Wednesday to reach the quarterfinals of 2011 BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells Tennis Gardens.
The 32 year old tennis veteran, Karlovic started the match positively. He held on to his serve in the first set and then broke his opponent’s serve in the tie-break 9-7 to win the set 7-6 (7).
In the second set Karlovic used his powerful service to great effect. He established complete control in the contest and lost only a couple of games to seal the match 7-6, 6-2. His first serve conversion was 66 percent and he smashed 16 aces in the match. Karlovic displayed impressive ground stroke play and took only 1 hour and 33 minutes to down his opponent to reach his first quarterfinal of the season.
On the other hand Spaniard Albert Montanes was disappointed with his effort. Although he put a good fight against the Croat, he had very few answers against the powerful serves fired to his half of the court.
The Croat is very well known for his blistering serves. In 2009 Davis Cup he served 78 aces in a match surpassing his previous record of 55. Earlier in his second round match at the ATP Masters 1000 tournament he became the fastest server of all time with a 251 km/h blast.
"It means a lot to me because that was one of the big goals in my career," Karlovic said while preparing for his third round matchup at the Indian Wells ATP tournament.
Karlovic had a shocking start to the season. He was defeated by Daniel Brand in the first round of Zargeb earlier this year. The Croat the managed only a win in his next five matches in four different ATP tournaments. He was able to recover his lost pride to some extent at the Indian wells winning four straight matches. The 20 year old missed several ATP tournaments after he suffered from foot injury before Wimbledon 2010 dropping in the ATP rankings significantly.
"It was really frustrating because after getting to the fourth round of the Australian Open, I thought it was going to be my best year so far. But I have been working hard and all this work has finally paid off", he added.
His quarterfinal clash will be against the world number one Rafael Nadal who made quick work of Indian Somdev Devvarman in straight sets.
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