Ivo Karlovic moves it into the semifinals of the US Men’s Clay Court Championships
America’s John Isner faced disappointment at the Houston tournament on Friday, losing to Croat Ivo Karlovic by the narrowest of margins. A qualifier into the tournament Karlovic scored a spectacular victory over Isner, defeating
the fourth seed in three thrilling sets 7-6(2), 6(2)-7, 7-6(9) in the quarterfinals of the US Men’s Clay Court Championships. Karlovic took three hours and sixteen minutes to oust his American opponent.
Given the huge difference in their world rankings, the 32-year-old left everyone surprised when he defeated his 145 places higher ranked opponent at the River Oaks Country Club. The pair’s last meeting came at the 2010 Regions
Morgan Keegan championships, where the American took barely seventy six minutes to move past his Croat opponent in the quarterfinals. Prior to this, the pair had already met at the New Haven event, where it was the Croat’s forte to defeat Isner in straight
sets in the round of 32.
Playing each other for the third time, the Croat successfully scored his lead with 2-1, going two up in their official head-to-head career. The whole match was bombarded with total number of 47 aces and meager eight double faults.
The players exhibited an excellent display of tennis to keep the audience amused till the end of the match. Though the match was concluded in Croat’s favour, the American played equally good.
Both players started the first set correspondingly well with Isner landing 7 aces while his opponent marked six. Both players maintained almost same amount of points on first serves but the difference turned out to their breakpoints
opportunities. Karlovic bagged 100 percent of breakpoints and 85 percent of points on first serves to clinch the set with a 7-6(2) score.
After Isner’s loss in the first set, he put his four years of experience to good use and broke his opponent’s serves twice to win it 7-6(2). Isner struck 9 aces and 63 percent of first serves, winning 82 percent of points on serves
and 77 percent of service points in total.
The final set was the most hard to conclude by both players. Karlovic started off the set with 10 aces, 69 percent of first serves and 84 percent of points on them. Isner on the other hand hit 7 aces, 53 percent of first serves
and won an impressive conversion rate of 87 percent on them. Luckily, Karlovic clinched the mini breakpoint opportunities to lead the sets with 2-1. The match was concluded in Karlovic’s favour with 7-6(9) score in the final set. Karlovic now moves on ahead
to meet wild card entrant, Ryan Sweeting in the semi-finals of the tournament.
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