Ivan Ljubicic, Lukasz Kubot make it to the third round – Wimbledon Championships 2011
World number 33, Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia, continued his voyage at the Wimbledon Championships by defeating 46th ranked Ukrainian competitor, Sergiy Stakhovsky in the second round of the tournament on Wednesday.
The Croat had no real trouble in disposing of Stakhovsky in straight sets 6-4, 6-4, 6-2, taking one hour and fifty four minutes of play to get a pass into the third round of the Grand Slam tournament being played at the All England
Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, London, England.
The unseeded Croat faced limited resistance from his opponent and forced his way to victory in straight sets. Ljubicic has already defeated Stakhovsky in singles encounter earlier this year at Rotterdam and his Wednesday’s victory
extends his head-to-head lead over the Ukrainian to 3-1.
Ljubicic served with 65 per cent precision and bagged 42 out of 54 first serve points, while cracking in five out of nine serve breaks en route to victory. 20 unforced errors from Stakhovsky assisted the Croat to his win, so did
the aggressive approach Ljubicic adopted throughout the contest.
The Croatian had a blistering start to the opener, breaking early to get into lead and then carried on to press his opponent, who submitted the first set at 4-6. Stakhovsky finally registered his first serve break of the match
in the following set but had to suffer two from his strong opponent to drop the second set at 4-6 as well. Two more serve breaks were belted by Ljubicic in the third set, sealing victory for him at 6-2, and booking a date with the world number four, Andy Murray
of Great Britain, in the third round of the mega event.
Lukasz Kubot of Poland was the other player who qualified for the third round after beating Ivo Karlovic of Croatia in straight sets. He took two hours and three minutes to wrap up victory at 7-6(2), 6-3, 6-3, striking three serve
breaks and not facing a single break point in the entire contest.
Apart from the hard fought opening set, Karlovic proved a wall of sand for Kubot and dropped the last two sets in just 66 minutes of play to end his voyage at the Wimbledon Championships, sending the Pole competitor in to the third
round.
Kubot will take on the ninth seed Gael Monfils of France in the next stage of the competition, as the Frenchman defeated the lucky loser from Slovenia, 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 7-6(7), in the second round of the tournament.
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