- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Giant Croatian Ivo Karlovic has joined the 9000 ace club, and scored a shock win in Qatar over world number one Novak Djokovic in the process.
Karlovic, the tallest player on the ATP tour at 211 centimetres, or 6 foot 11, has fired in 9022 career aces, and is in third place among the all-time servers behind another Croat, Goran Ivanesevic (10183), and Andy Roddick (9074).
“I have set my sights on Goran’s record,” said the soon-to-be 36 year old Karlovic.
Passing the 9000 milestone gave Karlovic more pleasure than the 6-7, 7-6, 6-4 win over Djokovic in the Qatar quarters, the second time he has beaten the incumbent world number one, after downing Roger Federer 7-6, 4-6, 7-6, in the third round of the 2008 Cincinnati Masters.
Karlovic wouldn’t have beaten Federer last night, with the 33-year-old in sublime form after dodging a three-set bullet in the Brisbane International the night before against Australian journeyman John Millwin, ranked 153 in the world.
Last night Federer cruised to his 998th career win on the ATP tour with a 6-0, 6-1 demolition job over 22-year-old Australian James Duckworth, in just 39 minutes.
Federer won 51 points overall to Duckworth’s 17.
The youngster was overawed at his first quarter-final appearance on the ATP tour, underlined by Federer’s comment in his after-match interview, “James can play a lot better than that.”
Federer was quite right, having watched Duckworth play so well to beat two vastly experienced campaigners in Frenchman Gilles Simon, and Finn Jarkko Nieminen.
Federer’s success moves him into third place behind Jimmy Connors’ world record of 1253 career wins, and Ivan Lendl’s 1071.
But it was a bad day for the three promising Australians with Sam Groth, Bernard Tomic, and Duckworth all eliminated.
Tomic went out meekly 6-0, 6-4 to world number five Kei Nishikori, while Groth was the best performer of the trio, bowing out in three sets to Canada’s world number eight Milos Raonic 7-6, 3-6, 7-6.
This was a bruising affair of heavy serving, with Groth pounding down 22 aces to 14. Despite never having his serve broken in regulation, and winning 99 points to 95 overall, Groth still lost.
Those are strange stats seeing Groth served consistently around the 235 kilometres per hour mark, to Raonic’s 219.
So the Brisbane semi-finalists are the top four seeds – Federer (1) meets talented Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov (4), while Raonic (3) takes on second seed Nishikori.