Best-of-five match, first set is warmup and with Karlovic it's a toss up which way it goes. As time goes on, he'll read the serve better and Ivo's level on serve will drop. Taking the second is dandy in this respect, no added pressure in the third.
If Karlovic does not have this ace machine in his hands, the guy will not be even in the top 100
The match was boring (and it was not due to jo).
Jo still did not play a match 5 sets
I am completely shocked by this loss. It turns out that I should have been worried about this match. Jo should seek advice from with Santoro next time he plays gigantic servers. I also think Karlovic served better than his usual level.
I said he was going to lose on him :/ I've never been more disappointed to be right.
This Wimbledon has now lost all kind of attractiveness for me (save for Simon, but I don't see him getting past his next round either, so...)
Poor loss, mainly due from the lack of experience in playing these kind of players in these kind of matches.
It's hard to acknowledge for us atm, but Jo is critically limited in his performance by his lack of experience : he is 24 and has played two wimbledon and one RG in his entire life. He hasn't even played one fifth set. Compare it with the experience of the other top players like Murray or Djokovic and it's telling.
Next year period of Rg and Wimbledon should be very interesting though, particularly RG : he has gone further on clay, than on grass after all.
Fortunately, he is a much experience player on hard, so this US open should be good. I just hope that this time, he is going to play a lot of tournaments before. He should know by now that he needs some practice to be good.
I'm aware of it rationally, he's played fewer tournaments than any 20-year old I know, but at the same time he puts together such amazing displays and results, it takes over. Karlovic is a special breed and a lot boils down to patience, waiting for your opportunity and not getting frustrated, as well as not going for too much when you do because outside the serve he's not your typical top class opponent. At times, I felt he was actually more frustrated by lack of anything to get pumped about, than the nonreturnable serves. Perhaps that pumped up state is when he's "conditioned" to play clutch (I really thought the break in the 3rd was totally uncharacteristic for him, he practically gave it away on his own). As it is, there were very few points he got excited about in the sense I'm getting into the grove, because there was very little play on either serve. :shrug:
poor Jo, the commentators were saying on BBC2 what a thoroughly boring match (this was aimed at Karlovic!) and in the PC in English they asked Jo "Did you play well?" and he kept repeating "I did not play, I did not play" as in I didn't get the chance to play because he aced me off the court! I have never seen Jo look so dejected after a loss, normally he seems to be able to take some positives from each and every match regardless of the result, but not this time it would seem. I think he thoght he would get further and seemed to just feel a sense of injustice at Karlovic's serve because at the end of the day, that serve is just not real tennis is it?! It's just serving and not much else. Sorry to any of his fans
I went to Wimbledon on Monday and saw Karlovic practising. How Jo even got a racket to any of his serves is beyond me. The man is HUGE! I expected him to be really skinny but he's not, he's really well built and he looked even taller than 6 foot 10 inches. Jo didn't really stand a chance. and he was just unlucky to have drawn him so early on.
I hope you had a good time, Vicky Karlovic is terrible. And it's only one man, can you imagine the whole next generation full of Karlovic babies ? We will just start by the fifth set tie break :lol:
And he's so annoying, either he loses to a nobody for 5 straight first rounds, or he outs top ten players just to offer on a silver plate his semi final to Federer
For myself, I didn't expect something incredibly big from Jo for this Wimbledon as soon as I saw the draw; however I have an excellent feeling about the USO coming up
Karlovic is a frustrating opponent for anyone. I really sympathised with Jo, who just wasn't allowed to play and engage into competitive rallies. In fact, both Jo and Verdasco suffered the same fate where Karlovic chose their matches to serve out of his mind - and of course, against Federer, he tightens up.
I'm now looking forward to the hard court season - don't forget that he missed the tournaments leading up to the US Open last year and every match he wins from now on constitutes a bonus.
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