Ivo Karlovic beats Horacio Zeballos in record-breaking match at Australian Open

Ivo Karlovic blasted 75 aces to beat Horacio Zeballos in record-breaking contest

Big-serving Ivo Karlovic fired down a jaw-dropping 75 aces as he sealed a thrilling 22-20 deciding set win over Horacio Zeballos in the longest match in terms of games at the Australian Open in the tie-break era.

The 20th seed from Croatia finally broke his opponent's resistance to complete a marathon 6-7 (6-8) 3-6 7-5 6-2 22-20 success in a match lasting five hours and 15 minutes on Court 19.

The 84-game total broke the previous tie-break era record at Melbourne Park set by Andy Roddick in a five-set win over Younes El Aynaoui in 2003 by one game.

The fifth set alone took two hours and 37 minutes as 37-year-old Karlovic broke Zeballos' serve in the 42nd game of the set, with the Argentine sending an attempted return rocketing out of the court.

Did you know...

The 6ft 11ins Karlovic holds the record for aces on tour after surpassing Goran Ivanisevic's career total of 10,237 in 2015.

In a match that featured a combined total of 108 aces, Karlovic himself delivered 75, which also smashed the previous Australian Open record of 51 set by Joachim Johansson in 2005.

In the 2012 men's final, Novak Djokovic defeated Rafael Nadal in the longest match ever in Australian Open history, lasting five hours and 53 minutes.

Karlovic is congratulated on his win by Argentina's Zeballos

Tuesday's first-round match also carried echoes of John Isner and Nicolas Mahut's epic encounter at 2010 Wimbledon, the longest match in tennis history.

After 11 hours, five minutes of play that stretched over three days, and a total of 183 games, Isner triumphed 70-68 in the final set.

World No 21 Karlovic goes through to the second round in Melbourne, where he will now meet Australian wildcard Andrew Whittington, a serve volleyer who earlier beat Czech Adam Pavlasek 6-4 4-6 6-2 6-3 in a relatively modest 145 minutes.

Follow game-by-game updates from Andy Murray's second-round match against Andrey Rublev at the 2017 Australian Open in our blog on skysports.com/tennis, our app for mobile devices and iPad or our Twitter account @skysportstennis.

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