It is 12 years since Ivo Karlovic made his name here when he upset the defending champion, Lleyton Hewitt, in round one. On Saturday, at the grand age of 36, the Croat reminded everyone that he is still around as he beat France’s Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 7-6, 4-6, 7-6, 7-6 to reach the last 16, the oldest man to do it since the almost 37-year-old Niki Pilic in 1976.
As he did here in 2009, in what was their only previous meeting on the main Tour, the 6ft 10in Karlovic edged out Tsonga in a match that predictably had some mighty serving, with Karlovic outnumbering the No13 seed by 41 aces to 13, taking his tally to 136 in three matches. His reward is a meeting with Andy Murray and, on current form, he might make the No3 seed’s life uncomfortable.
It was a moment of luck in the fourth-set tie-break that got Karlovic over the line when, with Tsonga standing at set point, the umpire missed what seemed to be a clear double-hit from him on a full-stretch volley. Had he spotted it, the match would have gone to a decider. Instead, Karlovic clinched victory with a forehand into the open court for a winner.
“I knew it [had happened] but it was one motion,” Karlovic said of his volley. “If it’s one motion, then it’s allowed.” Slow-motion replays suggested it had been two separate motions but Karlovic said it was a trick of the cameras. “That’s because it’s really slowed down,” he said. “I just stretched my arm out and then the ball hit down [low] on my racket. Because it hit there, then the racket went down and it hit again. It was like boom, boom, but it was one motion, so it’s legal. I thought I was extremely lucky, so I liked it.”
Many players would have been furious at such bad luck but Tsonga, a semi-finalist here in 2011 and 2012, was impressively philosophical. “It’s the job of the umpire to see it,” he said. “If he can’t see it, I can’t do anything. Even if I saw it, I can’t say anything. I just looked at the umpire. He said no. I said OK, next point. It’s not important for me. What I can do? Nothing. Talk about it for one hour, two hours, four hours. It doesn’t change the result. I don’t care, to be honest, because it’s too late.”
When John Isner and Marin Cilic stepped back on to court tied at 10-10 in the final set in a match held over from Friday evening, memories of 2010 and the 11-hour-five-minute epic between the American and France’s Nicolas Mahut drifted back. But there was to be no repeat, and not even close, as Cilic held serve and Isner then served two double-faults to go out 7-6, 6-7, 6-4, 6-7, 12-10.
It is the fifth time out of five the US Open champion, Cilic, has beaten Isner, and the 6ft 9in American said it was another tough loss to take. “It’s very, very disappointing, because I have lost a lot of matches like that in the last four years or whatever,” he said.
“It sucks. Nothing to hang my head about in losing to him. It’s just disappointing in the fashion that of how I lost that match.”
