It’s vital Andy keeps his cool
HOW will Andy Murray feel today trying to receive the fearsome serve of Ivo Karlovic? I would say the best thing to compare it to is being a goaltender in ice hockey.
the object is going to come at you at very high speed, there is some guesswork involved, sometimes you cannot do anything about it, sometimes you get lucky, you have to be as sharp as you can.
We had roger federer in our studio during the close of Karlovic’s match against JoWilfried tsonga. He made the point that the most important thing when playing him is to focus on holding your own serve and not expect to break him.
roger is right. What Murray has to do is hold himself, and that will put pressure on the Croatian and make it more likely that he will throw in some mistakes when he is blasting away at you.
Playing him is a huge mental challenge. I was actually coaching Andy when they played each other in San Jose back in 2007. It was one of those matches when you could not feel comfortable until the umpire called game, set and match because of Karlovic’s ability to maintain such a high level of serving. He has a very clean, repeatable motion and — unlike some players — his ball toss remains pretty much the same so it is difficult to get a ‘read’ on it.
You cannot really attack his second delivery and probably his best serve is the one into the advantage court.
there is one that he hits flat and short into the box, and even if you guess right it is pretty much impossible to defend against. Part of the challenge is that you have to accept that some of his serves are unreturnable and not let that get to you too much.
And even though Karlovic is now 36 there is not much point in hoping that he gets tired. On about 95 per cent of the points he plays they only last four shots or less so even if he gets into a five- setter he does not need his legs too much. that is a big reason why he is still enjoying success this deep into his career.
What Andy needs to do is give Dr Ivo different looks when receiv- ing. He needs to vary his position a bit for the return, stand a bit wider at times, a bit further forward, go a bit further back.
Andy is also pretty good with his hunches about which direction the ball might go — a bit like the kind of goalkeeper who performs well in penalty shootouts. It will be psychologically reassuring for him to know he has beaten Karlovic five times out of five. He can defuse these bombs, but it’s absolutely critical that he looks after his own serve as well.