Favourite Karlovic goes through
Home favourite Ivo Karlovic ousted seventh seed Grigor Dimitrov to seal his place in the second round of the PBZ Zagreb Indoors.
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The giant Zagreb-born 33-year-old thundered down 18 aces as he claimed a 7-6 (7/3) 7-6 (7/3) victory over his Bulgarian opponent.
Fifth seed Martin Klizan of Slovakia might also have been an early casualty before battling back to defeat Italian lucky loser Matteo Viola 4-6 7-6 (8/6) 6-1 in a match that lasted two and a half hours.
While Karlovic progressed through, three other Croatians were knocked out with Filip Veger losing 6-2 6-4 to Czech Lukas Rosol, Nikola Mektic going down 6-4 6-2 to Dutchman Igor Sijsling while Mate Pavic was beaten 7-5 6-2 Philipp Petzschner of Germany.
Petzschner, a semi-finalist here in 2010, will now face second seed Andreas Seppi in the next round.
Other first-round winners today were Slovenian duo Blaz Kavcic and Grega Zemlja, as well as Indian Somdev Devvarman, who was leading 0-6 7-6 (8/6) 4-1 when German opponent Michael Berrer retired due to fatigue.
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