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  • Open 13 Previews: Baghdatis vs. Karlovic

    2/14/08 5:16 PM | Ricky Dimon
    - While Baghdatis turned professional five years ago and Karlovic has been on the ATP Tour for eight seasons, surprisingly this is the first time the two players have met head-to-head.

    (6) Marcos Baghdatis vs. Ivo Karlovic
    Normally it would be difficult to get a read on this match, as Baghdatis and Karlovic have no history together and neither contestant is playing particularly good or bad at the moment. Both lost in the first round of their first tournaments in 2008 (Baghdatis in Chennai and Karlovic in Doha) and then both of them made it to the third round of the Australian Open (Baghdatis lost to Hewitt in a five-set epic that ended after 4:30 in the morning; Karlovic got erased by Mikhail Youzhny in three easy sets).

    Nonetheless, it’s never hard to predict the general outcome of a match involving Karlovic. If it doesn’t go all the way to a third-set tiebreaker—as his first-round win over Feliciano Lopez did—at the very least there will be very few breaks of serve and almost certainly no less than one tiebreaker. Baghdatis completely dominated Arnaud Clement from the baseline in his 6-3, 6-4 win on Tuesday.

    Karlovic served at an impressive 72 percent rate in his victory over Lopez on Wednesday and the 6’10’’ Croat won 90 percent of his first-serve points. Both of those facts would suggest a tight battle with very few chances against the server is in store for Thursday’s nightcap at the Open 13.

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