News Feature

Croat wins pre-Wimbledon tennis tournament

23 June 2008

Croatian tennis player Ivo Karlovic is hoping his Slazenger Open success in Nottingham will prepare him for Wimbledon.

The 29-year-old beat Fernando Verdasco 7-5, 6-7, 7-6 over the weekend at the grass-court Wimbledon warm-up.

Persistent rain meant that the match had to be moved indoors instead of on grass and the Croatian was the winner after two and a half hours on court.

Mr Karlovic was defending his title at the tournament won last year but, he has only ever reached the fourth round of Wimbledon back in 2004, according to the Scotsman.

He told the newspaper: "It is the opportunity for me to go up in my rankings there - at Wimbledon hopefully. I'm going to play each match at a time and we'll see."

According to his website, Ivo Karlovic was born in Zagreb in 1979 and is currently the tallest player ever to enter the top 100 in ATP history.

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