MURRAY COMES THROUGH KARLOVIC TEST

Andy Murray came through a challenging four set encounter in 4 sets with the Croatian giant Ivo Karlovic on Thursday afternoon. The match was always going to be a completely different affair to Murray’s thrashing of Davydenko in the first round, and it took all the Scot’s determination to keep his own serve strong while taking advantage of any hint of weakness in the Karlovic serve. At 6’ 10” the Croat is the biggest player on tour and his serve is everything you would expect from a man of this stature. With second serves regularly coming Murray’s way at 120mph or more, his defence had to be spot on, and for most of the time it was.

The first set was a close affair but Andy pulled ahead on serve to 6-5, then created a set point with a backhand winner. Throughout the match Karlovic gave away foot faults, much to his own frustration, and this was the case on his first serve at set point. This clearly distracted him and he netted his second serve to give Murray a one set lead. The second set was even closer, going to a tie break which Karlovic edged 7-5, making it ten wins out of the last 11 tie breaks. The Scot finally gained some significant momentum in the second set, breaking twice and winning comfortably before Karlovic upped his game again in the fourth. This saw another tie break, but Murray held his nerve and at 4-4 the Croat double faulted giving his opponent a match point which he took with aplomb, finishing the match 6-4 6-7 (5-7) 6-2 7-6 (7-4).

“Winning is all that’s important when you’re playing a guy with his style,” a visibly relieved Murray said after the match. “It’s so challenging to get into a rhythm.” The world number four was also happy with the way he played the tie breaks, thinking of Ivo’s exemplary record in this area of the game. “Tie-breaks are a bit of a lottery with someone like Karlovic. You have to get your racquet on returns and hope he makes a mistake. I was seeing the ball fairly well on the return, I was hitting it cleanly on the forehand and I came up with good passing shots at the right time.”