ATP Indian Wells: Dominic Thiem defuses Ivo Karlovic
Dominic Thiem is in the quarter-finals of the ATP Masters tournament in Indian Wells, California. The 25-year-old won 6: 4, 6: 3 against serve expert Ivo Karlovic in less than an hour. ( To the match tracker. )
by Florian Goosmann
last edit: Mar 14, 2019, 06:31 am
Protect your own service games, stay with "Dr. Ivo" until the first service does not come - it is the usual tactic against the 2.11-man from Croatia.
Thiem implemented it perfectly. While he acted with a lot of spin on the opposing backhand side in his service games, got a correspondingly high first serve rate and determined the rallies, he came into play surprisingly often with the returns.
A 0:30 problem in the middle of set one turned Thiem confidently, at 5: 4 the first service of 40-year-old Karlovic failed several times, Thiem brought the first round with a fine backhand return.
In set two, Thiem broke 3: 1, Karlovic had still blocked two break chances, for the third it was no longer enough. With his own serve, Thiem was completely harmless, he did not allow a break chance.
All in all, a strong, tactically perfect presentation of the world ranking eighth, which only made three uncommon mistakes and which was ultimately even in front in almost all serve statistics: with the first serves in the field (87 to 61 percent), with the points gained after the first serve (85 to 82 percent) in those after the second (83 to 50 percent). Only with the aces "Dr. Ivo" was ahead with 6: 4 - but for his standards that was too little.
Thiem will meet Gael Monfils in the quarter-finals of the $ 8.35 million tournament (from 3 a.m.CET).
Rafael Nadal and Roger Federe had previously reached the round of eight.