Karlovic serves up route one win

TENNIS WIMBLEDON CHAMPIONSHIPS:BEING IVO Karlovic must be an interesting state of existence, especially on grass.

He is the tallest player in men’s tennis at 6ft 10ins and yesterday, playing against Jo Wilfried Tsonga, he hit 46 aces.

That’s equivalent to about two sets of what the players like to call free points. No surprise the ninth seed and mildly addled Tsonga is on his way back to France wondering what happened to him on Court One in the third round at Wimbledon yesterday.

Tsonga lost in four sets 7-6 (7-5), 6-7 (5-7), 7-5, 7-6 (7-5). The three tie-breakers are often a sign of tight service matches and this one went to type, at least Karlovic’s type. His tennis life is always a high-wire act, the sets swinging on points taken when the consequences are at their most critical. It’s a stress-filled game of nerves as much as serves with the 30-year-old’s game appearing to entirely revolve around the twin poles of aces or tea-breaks.

“I don’t work on it,” he said afterwards. “It’s mostly the nerves because everyone gets a little tight in this situation. So it’s important to stay relaxed, focused.”

It was raw and power-driven, both players trying to draw blood as quickly as they could. It was winning strike after winning strike, with few long rallies or guile.

Mostly it was Karlovic using his frame as best he could and that left little in there to please the classicists. But it was also one of lightening reflexes and charged moments. Karlovic hit 46 aces but Tsonga had 26 beside his name after they came off court following two hours and 44 minutes of sniper fire.

The last time we saw serving like this was when his Croatian compatriot, Goran Ivanisevic, was injury-free and playing a similar type of crack-shot game but while Ivanisevic has the 2001 Wimbledon title on his sideboard back in Split, Karlovic holds the record for number of aces in one match.

Lleyton Hewitt watched as 55 flew past him in the first round of this year’s French Open at Roland Garros. Karlovic has been the tour ace leader for the past two years and is again leading in 2009.

But he arrived into the Tsonga match with form at Wimbledon too and in 2005 hit 51 first deliveries past the helpless Daniele Bracciali.

Yesterday’s eye-popping demonstration earns Karlovic, who didn’t offer Tsonga one break point, a meeting with seventh seed Fernando Verdasco and it is a cast-iron certainty that it will be the same sort of percussion game.

“You can do nothing,” said a sombre, defeated Tsonga.

Karlovic was defiantly upbeat even when accused of only having a one-dimensional game based on an unattractive, if efficient, point -collecting talent. “It’s actually . . .I can win with one shot. I’m . . .I don’t know, a genius. So I like it,” he said smiling.

A counterpoint to Karlovic was Roger Federer sweeping towards another second week. In beating Germany’s Philipp Kohlschreiber 6-3, 6-2, 6-7, 6-1, he handed up a set but played his best game of the tournament so far.

Federer had beaten the 25-year-old three times before, twice on the grass at Halle and although Kohlschreiber started to pick off the top seed’s serve in the third set to win it 7-6, the Swiss, as if to show his pristine gearing system, immediately brought his game up a level to snatch the fourth set 6-1. The win means he will meet the player he defeated at Roland Garros to win his first French Open, Robin Soderling.

“I thought the rhythm was very high,” said Federer. “We played a lot of tough points. I really thought from my side it was an excellent match. Maybe my serve let go just a little bit. But he started to pick sides and make the right decisions at the right time and deserved that third set,” he graciously added.

Federer also picked up another record with the win. He broke Andre Agassi’s mark with what was his 47th win at the All England club. With a pregnant partner by his side and the possibility of a record 15th Grand Slam title, Agassi’s mark wasn’t really on his mind. “I didn’t know. I mean it wasn’t one I was dreaming of as a boy,” said Federer. “If you asked him (Agassi) he probably wouldn’t know either.”

Still en route for a meeting with Federer is Novak Djokovic. The Serb fourth seed brought his trusty return of serve game to the meeting with American Mardy Fish and won the match with impressive efficiency, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4. That leaves just Andy Roddick and Jessie Levine to fly the Stars and Stripes. Levine, a qualifier, faces 19th seed Stanislas Wawrinka, from Switzerland today in a fourth round match .