Thursday, February 5, 2015

Top seed Ivo Karlovic bows out after battling win from Marcos Baghdatis in Zagreb

Marcos Baghdatis: Seized the crucial points

Marcos Baghdatis survived a match point as he completed a thrilling upset win over top seed Ivo Karlovic in the second round of the Zagreb Indoors.

The Cypriot battled back from the brink of defeat in a match containing just one break of serve, eventually closing out a 3-6 7-6 7-6 victory.

Karlovic sent down 26 aces and won 80 per cent of his first serve points, but was edged out by the ice-cool Baghdatis, who converted his second match point.

During a tense encounter, the Croat saved a match point at 5-6 with another ace, then spurned one at 7-6 and was left to curse his missed opportunities.

"It's not easy to handle this," Karlovic said. "I expected more. I had a match point and did not convert it."

Sixth-seed Mikhail Youzhny also advanced to the quarter-finals with a 6-1 6-2 win over Russia’s Sergiy Stakhovsky.

In the opening round, Britain’s James Ward completed a comfortable 6-2 6-4 win over Croatian Antonio Veic, while former champion Ivan Dodig defeated Croatian Mate Delic  6-2 6-3.

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