October 16, 2019 - A Croatian round of 16 awaits at the Kremlin Cup in Moscow, as Ivo Karlovic and Marin Cilic are set to meet on Thursday.
Gol.hr writes that Croatian tennis player Ivo Karlovic saved the match point in a decisive tie-break on Tuesday - and after battling for two hours and 11 minutes in the first round of the Kremlin Cup, he defeated Slovenian Aljaž Bedene 6-4, 6-7 (5), 7-6 (6). In the round of 16, Karlovic awaits an all Croatian duel, with Marin Cilic on the other side of the net.
It was the fifth encounter between the 40-year-old Karlovic and 30-year-old Slovenian, in which the Croatian veteran reached his first victory.
In the first set, Karlovic needed a break to take the 3-2 lead to win. In the second set, he missed a chance to break in the first game and saved Bedene's only break point in the eighth game, forcing the game to a tie-break. Bedene managed to score one point on Karlovic's serve, which was enough for him to win the set.
Karlovic had the only chance to break in the third set with a 4-3 lead, but Bedene came back. The Slovenian led by 5-2 in the decisive tie-break, but Karlovic returned to 5-5 and led 6-5 to save the match point. Karlovic also scored the next two points, reaching his 11th win of the season (11-14).
Karlovic scored 35 aces to win, achieving a first-serve percentage of 85 percent and 58 percent on the second serve. Bedene scored three more points (107-104) overall, but that wasn't enough for the victory.
In the fight for the quarterfinal, Karlovic will play against Marin Cilic who, as the third-seed of the Kremlin Cup, was free in the first round. In their six encounters so far, Karlovic and Cilic have each won three times. Karlovic and Cilic last played two years ago in the semifinal of the Rosmalen Grass Court Championships. Karlovic, who is nine years older than Cilic, won in three sets.
The round of 16 match between Karlovic and Cilic is scheduled for Thursday.
On Tuesday, the first-seed Russian Danil Medvedev, who just won the ATP Masters 1000 Series tournament in Shanghai, dropped out of the tournament in Moscow. He has played in six consecutive finals, after all. Medvedev was replaced in the main draw by a lucky loser from the qualifications, Serbian tennis player Nikola Milojevic.
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