Andy Murray 'needs to serve at his best' to beat Ivo Karlovic
Monday 6 July 2015 14:33, UK
Andy Murray has been warned that unless he serves at his very best against Ivo Karlovic on Monday, the No 3 seed could be heading for Wimbledon’s exit door.
This is the view of former world No 3 Ivan Ljubicic who currently coaches Canada's Milos Raonic and is a close friend of Murray’s next opponent.
Thanks to hot temperatures during the first week of Wimbledon, the ground is firmer and harder than normal, and this has played into the hands of the big servers such as Karlovic.
Karlovic, standing 6ft 11in, boasts the second-most aces in tennis history and during his opening three matches this year at the All England Club has already smashed down 136 aces.
At 36, the Croat is the oldest male to reach the second week at Wimbledon since 1976 and his compatriot Ljubicic believes he has a great chance of making the quarter-finals.
Looking ahead to the Murray-Karlovic match, Ljubicic said: "Ivo has absolutely nothing to lose.
"He is really relaxed. Literally five minutes before his last match (against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga) we were joking in the locker room.
"He is completely aware of his strengths and weaknesses and he is just doing what he does the best: serving and attacking as much as he can. He is in heaven.
"The whole pressure will be on Andy knowing he has to be sharp on the return of serve and he will have to hold his own serve which is always the underestimated key.
"Murray has to have at least 80 per-cent first serves. He cannot risk to have 50 to 60 per-cent because Ivo is just going to jump on that second serve which we know is not Andy's strength and he is going to attack and cause damage.
"I am sure that in that case Andy will go for a high percentage of first serves and try to move him around on the baseline.
Murray has to have at least 80 per-cent first serves. He cannot risk 50 to 60 per-cent
"But he'll have to be really sharp because one slip, one lapse of concentration and you are down a set."
Ljubicic, a Davis Cup winner in 2005, also believes Karlovic is one of the greatest servers in tennis history.
He added: "I cannot think of him being out of the top three servers of all time, alongside Goran Ivanisevic and maybe Pete Sampras.
"His first serve is as big as it always was but you can see now physically he has grown since the health scare he had a couple of years ago (meningitis).
"He wasn't this big five or 10 years ago. He cannot hit harder than before but he can do it for longer which obviously for him is the key.
"There are a lot of big guys out there, but they don't all serve like that.”
