Little was given away by either player in the remainder of the set but one break was all Murray needed to put himself two sets up.
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Isner has only taken one set off him during a Slam (US Open quarter-final) and hopefully Murray has gotten over his mental walks off the map to be able to be every bit as clinical as he was with Karlovic, as the rest of his path is no easier.
His 41 aces helped him past young Australian Jordan Thompson in round two, 12-10 in the fifth set, and his game has come a long way since his early days when anything on his backhand would rarely come back. “It’s unbelievable because this year I was struggling with the injury”, Karlovic said. “I had a very light practice yesterday and just tried to keep my feet up and recover as best as possible, tried to get as much sleep as I could, spend a lot of time with the physio, and then just resting to try to give myself the best chance to feel good today”.
Now he had what, on paper, was another winnable match against the second oldest man in the draw.
Karlovic’s height did not stop Murray using the lob from time to time, though not as frequently as he did so memorably when beating the Croatian at Wimbledon last summer.
The Spaniard said: “I had a scan and the results are not positive”.
After Murray had played his first two matches on Court Philippe Chatrier, which is the main stadium here, his third was played on Court Suzanne Lenglen, which looked a picture on the best day of the tournament so far. Karlovic on the other hand… She also saved five of the six break points she faced.
He said: “I felt okay today actually”.
His opponent is also coming of a 5 set win but the problem for Karlovic is that his opponent is Andy Murray.
Stepanek was the oldest man to play in the singles at a Grand Slam tournament for 24 years, while Karlovic is the oldest man to reach the third round of a Grand Slam event for 25 years. He had still made only three unforced errors.
Murray’s scare came out of nowhere: he looked in complete control after taking the first set and then broke Bourgue in the Frenchman’s opening service game of the second set.
Karlovic, usually greedy for aces, was kept to only two untouched serves in that set, while Murray landed 75% of his own first serves.
He dropped serve in the third game of the match but broke back twice to take the opening set. “Got off to a quick start, but he fought right to the end. I started quickly and obviously it is great to get off court in a relative quick match”, Murray said on court postmatch. I have had good success against him in the past and I have always enjoyed playing against serve and volleyers. He leads the ATP Tour in career service games won at more than 92%.
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The Briton will face another tall order on Sunday to reach the quarterfinals, though, with John Isner up next following the American’s victory over Teymuraz Gabashvili.
