Wimbledon '09: Just What the 'Doctor' Ordered

The numerals at the Rolex meter to monitor the service speed read 123 (mph) after Ivo Karlovic sent a second serve rocketing down the T for an ace. This pretty much summed up the day for Karlovic and Jo Wilfried Tsonga.

Ivo Karlovic is one of the most predictable players on the tour—in a scary way, though. It is among his intangibles that the 6’10” guy from Croatia will come down on any given day, give that awkward loopy ball toss just before his serve, and will invariably boom down an unreturnable to leave the opponent helpless.

Jo Wilfried Tsonga knew this exactly, and it felt like Karlovic had got on to Tsonga’s nerves even before the match started.

Tsonga had a single strategy throughout the match: Serve big and try to hold his service games, guess the direction in which the Doctor will fire down his capsule, lean towards that side, and hope for four right guesses in one game to earn a break of serve.

A pretty good strategy, considering that Tsonga’s serve would be pretty reliable and his ground game is much better than the towering Croat.

Except that it did not work out completely.

Karlovic understood this strategy right from the start, and countered it to perfection. It was a fantastic serving exhibition from Karlovic, considering the distraction presented by Tsonga’s voluntary movement towards one side of the court, and even then Karlovic perfectly changed his angle at the last millisecond to boom down an ace to the opposite side.

He won the first set tie-breaker by gaining a solitary mini-break over Tsonga, while Tsonga repeated this act to equalize the match in the second.

The third set saw Karlovic trying out different things to get an important break, as he knew that his service games were secure. He was more patient on the rallies and chipped and charged on Tsonga’s serves. Tsonga was under pressure, as his service games were not as comfortable as the first two.

The Frenchman found himself two set points down on his serve in the 12th game of the set (which were the only two break points in the whole match). He saved the first with a courageous forehand down the line, but Karlovic dipped a good volley on the second to gain an important two sets to one lead.

The fourth set was a repeat of the first, as it went down to the tiebreaker. Karlovic got a mini-break early in the tiebreaker, and fitting ended the match with a second serve ace thumped down the T.

He served a whopping 82 winners in the match, 46 of which were aces—an even better ratio per set than his record-setting effort in the French Open match against Hewitt—and won a highly competitive match 7-6 (5), 6-7 (5), 7-5, 7-6 (5).

Animated by the tough match, the normally stoic giant broke free with some unique celebration on the court, which he clearly was not comfortable with, as it looked a little amusing.

That did not matter in the end, as he equaled his best Grand Slam performance—he last reached a fourth round in Wimbledon '04—to set up an exciting fourth-round encounter with Fernando Verdasco, who himself showed a fine match against Alberto Montanes. Add to that Federer’s comfortable victory over Philipp Kohlschreiber, and fans can hope for a mouth watering quarterfinal between Karlovic and Federer.

Before that, the dangerous Spaniard awaits him on Monday.

 

(Picture courtesy wimbledon.org)