Ivo Karlovic battles past Carlos Berlocq to claim a third round berth – Australian Open 2012
In a Croatian-Argentine conflict at the Australian Open, world number 57, Ivo Karlovic, ousted the 61st ranked Carlos Berlocq after an exciting competition on Wednesday. The unseeded Croat veteran took three hours and
23 minutes of play to dump Berlocq in four sets, 7-6(4), 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, in the second round of the Grand Slam Down Under.
It was an enthralling battle in the opening two sets but turned out to be a pretty one-sided affair in the later parts of the match. Both men went neck-to-neck in the opener, which took 64 minutes to get settled in Karlovic’s favour.
Berlocq back fired in the following set to draw the scores at one-all but the 57th ranked Croatian went all guns blazing in the next two sets to cruise to victory in a convincing manner.
32-year-old Karlovic banged in 20 cracking aces and secured 63 out of 87 first serve points en route to victory. He delivered 20 winners in the contest, with his inferior ranked opponent managing merely one in the entire matchup
to finish on the losing side in the end.
A monotonous start to the opening set kept the pace of the game a bit slower, with both men holding their entire serves throughout. A tie-breaker round came into play once the scores were levelled at 6-6. Karlovic rocketed away
to a 5-1 lead in the decider but the argentine pinned some elegant winners to curtail his lead to 6-4. Berlocq thumped a forehand return right into the net to let Karlovic take the opening set at 7-6(4).
The Argentine broke early in the fourth game and then again in the sixth game of the next set to take a massive lead of 5-1. Karlovic retaliated with a break point conversion in the seventh game but failed to restrain his opponent
bagging the second set at 6-3.
Karlovic shifted his gears in the following two sets and nailed a break point in each of them to race away to victory in style. He Will take on the Swiss Maestro, Roger Federer, in the third round clash of the Australian Open later
this week.
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