Match report

Sergiy Stakhovsky © Tennistalk.com
PBZ Zagreb Indoors
1st round
2/26/08 1 2 3 Tot
ua  Sergiy Stakhovsky 4 7 7 6 2
hr  Ivo Karlovic 6 6 5 2 1
Ivo Karlovic © Tennistalk.com

  • Karlovic suffers shock defeat

    2/27/08 8:12 AM | David Cox
    5 Croats made it through to the last 16 yesterday, the first time it’s happened in any ATP event but the big shock was; Ivo Karlovic wasn’t among them.

    The 2nd seed was expected to be a main contender for the title, competing on home soil and in great form, having made the Rotterdam semis last week. However, Ukraine’s Sergiy Stakhovsky (who only made the main draw as a lucky loser !) didn’t read the script, producing undoubtedly, his best ever win. Stakhovsky (ranked down at 200) hasn’t won an ATP match since October 2006 and for a long time yesterday, it looked like that would continue. Karlovic appeared on the way to another routine straight sets victory, he took the first set 6-4 and held 2 break points at 2-2 in the 2nd. Stakhovsky saved both and it appeared to give him belief, the Ukrainian raising his game several notches to take the set 7-5 in the tiebreak before running away with the 3rd 6-2. He now plays Victor Troicki, a 6-3, 7-6 winner against George Bastl.

    Top seed Ivan Ljubicic was always in control against Ernests Gulbis; 6-3, 7-6(7). Ljubicic made slightly heavy weather of the tiebreak, missing 2 match points at 6-4 and then having to save set point (6-7) before finally wrapping it up.

    Andreas Seppi was another seeded casualty, going down 6-4, 7-6 to the hard serving South African Rik de Voest. Seppi beat Hewitt and Nadal in Rotterdam last week so it’s a bit of a surprise but the Zagreb courts are a lot faster and as an out-and-out baseliner without a particularly huge serve, Seppi was going to struggle against a net-rusher like de Voest.

    With Karlovic and Santoro out, the bottom half looks enticingly open for 5th seed Marin Cilic. He cruised to a 6-2, 6-2 win against a rather jetlagged Guillermo Garcia-Lopez who’d just flown all the way from San Jose after making last week’s semis. As the only two seeds left, it’s a great chance for him or Janko Tipsarevic to make their first final.

Tell a friend »

Other articles related to the tournament

Click here fore more articles

Comments


Write comment

You have to be logged in to comment. If you do not have an account, click here to register. It only takes a minute and you'll be redirected back to this page.
Username:

Password:

Expekt.com offers you the widest range and best odds on all tennis matches. Click here to bet and check all the latest tennis odds from expekt.com

Did you know that... In Miami 2006, Argentinean Carlos Berlocq first defeated Donald Young 6-0, 6-0 and then lost 6-0, 6-0 to James Blake in the following round.

Register for newsletter:

Poll

The ATP season is
Too long
Fine as it is
Too short

Poll archive

Articles - Latest commented

Blog - Latest commented

Tell a friend

Your name:

Friend's name:

Friend's email:

Other tennis links

Related articles

ua  Sergiy Stakhovsky hr  Ivo Karlovic
PBZ Zagreb Indoors  PBZ Zagreb Indoors