Croatian giant Ivo Karlovic beat Italy’s Andreas Seppi 7-6 (7-5) 6-3 to advance to the second round of the Erste Bank in Vienna, which has been upgraded to ATP 500 this year.
The first set went on serve until the tie-break where Karlovic won with 7-5. In the second set Seppi did not convert his only break point. Karlovic held his serve in the whole match and got the only break of the match in the sixth game of the second set to take the 3-2 lead. Karlovic, who broke the all-time record of aces during the match he lost against Pablo Cuevas in Beijing, hit 17 aces to bring the total to 10306 in his career.
This year Karlovic broke the record for most aces in a three-set ATP Tour match during the quarter final against Tomas Berdych this year at the Gerry Weber in Halle where he fired 45 aces. In 2009 Karlovic broke the record in a Davis Cup match firing 78 aces against Radek Stepanek in a match which lasted 5 hours and 51 minutes
Twenty-two year-old Czech rising star Jiri Vezely hit seven aces and broke serve four times to beat Gerald Melzer 6-4 6-3 in one hour and 13 minutes. Vezely was broken once in the first set on the only break point he faced.
Vezely will take on either number 2 seed Kevin Anderson or Andreas Haider Maurer.
Thirty-six year-old Czech veteran Radek Stepanek cruised to 4-0 in the first set en route to beating Dennis Novak 6-4 6-3 in one hour and 20 minutes.
Lukas Rosol faced only a break point in his 6-4 7-6 (7-2) win over Yuich Sugita.
Ernests Gulbis bounced back from losing the second set to edge 19-year-old Austrian wild card Lucas Miedler with 6-3 2-6 6-3. With this win the Latvian player ended his five-match losing streak. Miedler made his debut in a main draw at ATP level.
The Erste Bank Open in Vienna takes place in the Wiener Stadthalle. The first round features some interesting matches like local favourite Dominic Thiem against Jerzy Janowicz. The Wednesday programme will be highlighted by the match between Shanghai finalist Jo Wilfred Tsonga and Tommy Haas. Four of the top-20 best players in the Race to London feature in the Vienna line-up: number 8 David Ferrer and number 9 Jo Wilfred Tsonga, who are battling for a spot in the ATP Finals, number 11 Kevin Anderson and number 12 John Isner. Ferrer holds a 945-point lead over Tsonga who has moved up to number 9 after reaching the final in the ATP Master 1000 in Shanghai
