Australian Open | Ivo Karlovic and Horacio Zeballos serve up 108 aces

Australian Open | Ivo Karlovic and Horacio Zeballos serve up 108 aces

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Big-serving Croatian Ivo Karlovic produced another memorable performance as he racked up 75 aces in his first-round tie against Horacio Zeballos at the Australian Open on Tuesday. Karlovic won the five-set marathon encounter, which went on for five hours and 14 minutes, 6-7, 3-6, 7-5, 6-2, 22-20.

Zeballos won the first two sets before Karlovic fought back to win the last three sets. The fifth set itself had 42 games as it almost turned into a boxing match. Zeballos himself served up 33 aces in the game, but Karlovic out-served him with 75 aces – the fourth highest by a player in a game.

While this encounter was no match for the classic John Isner and Nicolas Mahut produced at the 2010 Wimbledon, where the duo served a total of 216 aces, this is the most number of aces served by a player in an Australian Open encounter – beating the previous record held by Joachim Johansson. The former player from Sweden had served 51 aces in his fourth-round loss to Andre Agassi in the 2005 Australian Open.

Ivo Karlovic has now served 11,689 aces in his career so far – the most by a player in the history of the game – and the 37-year-old is showing no signings of slowing down at the moment. In the top-10 list of the most number of aces served by a player in a single match, Karlovic has six mentions! The no. 20 seed will now face local boy Andrew Whittington in his second round encounter.

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