If ever a man faced a formidable challenge on Wimbledon’s grass, it was ex- champion Andy Murray in the fourth round. Had Rafael Nadal not been upset in the second round, he could’ve been in line to face Murray in Wednesday’s quarterfinals match.
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Play: Centre Court play starts at 13:00 BST. You didn’t need to be a data analyst to know what kind of threat Karlovic posed: Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, whom the Croat had defeated in the third round, described his serves as cannonballs. Venus won one final, and also won a semi-final match against her younger sibling in 2000 – the first time they met on court at the tournament.
He claimed another high-profile win in 2015, too.
Roger Federer and Andy Murray reached the Wimbledon quarter-finals Monday but defending champion Novak Djokovic’s attempt to join them was thwarted by bad light after fighting back from two sets down to level with Kevin Anderson. The oldest man in Wimbledon’s second week since 1976 came to professional tennis late on, and has adopted a nothing-to-lose attitude since the health scare that threatened his career and more in 2013. It’s quite stressful to play against him. And while he plays as No3 seed, he is No2 in the race after his best ever clay season-not to mention the Queen’s title, part of an 8-match winning streak.
Ex- coach Ivan Lendl brought much needed calm on the way to two Grand Slam titles and an Olympic gold.
The British star had beaten Karlovic in all five of their previous meetings, so he clearly had a few clue to how to contain the big-serving Croat’s game.
Serena will now play ex- world number one Victoria Azarenka in the last eight following her 6-2, 6-3 victory over Swiss Belinda Bencic. Or should we say abnormal service, given the peculiar angles from which Karlovic, thanks to his height, fires down balls at his opponents? That’s where he feels like he has a best chance besides USA Open.
Murray got the crucial break in the seventh game of the fourth set.
But Murray furthered his reputation as one of the sharpest returners in the game as precision won over power in a 7-6 [9/7] 6-4 5-7 6-4 victory on Centre Court.
Murray was speaking after he beat Ivo Karlovic to reach the Wimbledon quarter-finals for the eighth successive year. The No. 3 seed was more frugal in the unforced errors department, with just 3 of them.
And then it all changed in the blink of an eye.
Three more break point opportunities came just at the right time for Murray as he led 5-4 and then 6-5, but on each occasion Karlovic served his way out of trouble to force the tie-break. The editor of the Wimbledon programme might as well have gone the whole hog and annotated the map of Centre Court in a nice calligraphic hand with the legend: Here Be Giants.
Murray made immediate inroads at the beginning of the second, breaking Karlovic for the first time in the match before eventually serving out the remainder of the set.
– – Karlovic 1-2 Murray: Brisk hold to love for Andy Murray.
The British number one overcame Ivo Karlovic’s demon serve to win a first-set tie-break.
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Despite Karlovic’s size Murray was able to get past him with impressive passing and lob shots and will now face Canada’s Vasek Pospisil.
