Giant of tennis world wins first title

There was something to cheer about when I woke up this morning: 6-foot 10-inch tall Ivo Karlovic of Croatia had won his first career ATP title by defeating Mariano Zabaleta 6-4 6-1 at the US Clay Court Championships in Houston. I was trying to follow the match online via the live scoreboard but fell asleep just before the second set began. So I was glad when the scrolling news on CNN on tv said that Karlovic had won.

I remember the time when Karlovic was defeated in the Miami AMS in 2005 by the Belgian dynamite, Olivier Rochus who stands nearly a foot-and-a-half shorter. I was delighted that David had slain Goliath in that match but felt sorry for Karlovic for whom the defeat was probably a huge embarrassment. An article reporting the match back then said that Karlovic was nowhere to be found for the post-match interview. Poor fellow, he seemed like a nice guy because the same article mentioned that a friend said, "Ivo's nice, sensitive. He's shy, maybe because he stutters. He realizes he has the Goliath role."

Well, at least he can be happy now that he finally has an ATP title to his name.