Ivo Karlović

Ivo Karlović ( born 28 February 1979) is a Croatian former professional tennis player.

His height of 211 cm (6 ft 11 in) makes him the joint tallest ranked tennis player in history, along with Reilly Opelka.

This makes him one of only five players since 1991 to surpass 10,000 aces.

His height enabled him to serve with high speed and unique trajectory.

Karlović played his first junior match in April 1995 at the age of 16 at a grade 3 tournament in Croatia.

He played only eight tournament throughout his junior career (four singles and four doubles).

In singles, he defeated a 15-year-old Marat Safin at the 1995 Junior Davis Cup.

In doubles, he was known for partnering future world No. 3 Ivan Ljubičić on numerous occasions.

Karlović ended his junior career with no ranking in both singles or doubles.

He had an overall win–loss record of 2–5 in singles and 5–3 in doubles.

He played his first Challenger event in December 1999.

Although not turning pro until 2000 at the age of 21, Karlović played his first ITF futures event in June 1998 and made two finals in August 1998 and September 1999, losing both.

Karlović debuted for the Croatian Davis Cup team in 2000 against Ireland, where he won the dead rubber.

He has posted a 4–2 career record (2–2 in singles) in three ties since 2000.

Karlović caused a major upset at Wimbledon when he beat defending champion Lleyton Hewitt in his first match in a Grand Slam tournament.

Karlović appeared in a starting line-up for the first time in 2002 against Argentina in Buenos Aires, but he lost to Juan Ignacio Chela in the second rubber and to Gastón Gaudio in the fifth and decisive rubber.

He finished the 2003 year in the top 100 and as the Croatian No. 3, behind Ivan Ljubičić and Mario Ančić.

He also averaged an ATP-best of 17.6 aces per match.

He continued his success during the 2004 season, winning at Calabasas, California.

He reached the round of sixteen in several tournaments, including Wimbledon.

In 2005, Karlović reached his first ATP final at the Queen's Club Championships, defeating Lleyton Hewitt and Thomas Johansson along the way.

In the final he lost to Andy Roddick.

There were no breaks of serve in the match.

Afterwards, Roddick said Karlović's serve is "probably the biggest weapon in tennis... you don't really get a feel for it unless you are on the other side. It was not fun at times."

At the 2005 US Open, Karlović lost to eventual runner-up Andre Agassi in three tiebreakers.

On 19 October 2005, he finally defeated Roddick in the Madrid Masters event.

In November 2005, he was a member of the Croatian team that won the Davis Cup.

He did not play in the finals, but played in a semifinal dead rubber.

On 26 February 2006, he won his first ATP Doubles Tournament with South African Chris Haggard, beating James Blake and Mardy Fish in the 2006 Regions Morgan Keegan Championships and the Cellular South Cup, Memphis, USA.

On 27 February, he reached a career high of No. 47 in doubles and on 8 May he also reached the top 50 in singles.

He won eight ATP Tour singles titles between 2007 and 2016.

Karlović and Roger Federer were the only players who won titles on three different surfaces during the 2007 season.

At age 28, he won his first ATP singles title at the 2007 U.S. Men's Clay Court Championships in Houston, Texas, defeating Mariano Zabaleta in the final.

On 29 May 2007 at the French Open, he defeated eighth seed James Blake in the first round.

In the next round he lost to Jonas Björkman in five sets.

On 23 June 2007, he won his second title of the year and his career at Nottingham, the last grass tune-up before Wimbledon, defeating seventh seed Stanislas Wawrinka, Gilles Simon, Juan Martín del Potro, second seed Dmitry Tursunov (a match played on indoor hard courts due to torrential rain), and Arnaud Clément.

Despite a first-round loss at Wimbledon, he rose to No. 40, making his top-40 debut.

He is a serve-and-volleyer and officially held the record for the fastest serve recorded in professional tennis, measured at 251 km/h (156 mph), before being surpassed unofficially by Samuel Groth in 2012, and officially by John Isner in 2016.

In his prime, he was considered one of the best servers on tour, and held the record for career aces from 1991 onwards with 13,728 (not including Davis Cup) before the record was broken by Isner on July 1 2022.

As of 2015, Karlović remains the only player in Open tennis history, and only the second player after Charlie Pasarell, to defeat the defending Wimbledon men's singles champion in the first round.