Before we get to Ivo Karlovic, let’s head across the pond to Hamburg and recap the events that happened there.

Hamburg is a tournament that used to be at the Master 1000 level.  Perhaps due to Spain’s increasing prominence on clay or due to Ion Tiriac’s business savvy or some other factor, there was a shuffle in the Masters 1000 titles a few years ago.  In particular, Hamburg was made an ATP 500 event played after Wimbledon.  Madrid, an indoor event, was moved to the trio of clay events prior to the French Open to replace Hamburg.  Shanghai was then converted to a Masters 1000 event after it was no longer the host of the year-end championship, that honor having been sent to London and the O2 arena.

Due to its demotion, the star studded fields that used to go to Hamburg were greatly reduced.  Suddenly players like Federer, Djokovic, and Nadal were no longer showing up to play.  Hamburg, of course, was upset, but what could they do?

And pretty much they became a second tier event, good enough to attract clay courters, but not the best of the best.

Then, Wimbledon happened.  In particular, Roger Federer couldn’t handle a charging Sergiy Stakhovsky who brought out a playbook that was over a decade old, charging to net at opportune moments.  Federer, as he has in several prior years, struggled with return, and also struggled with passing.

With his early second round exit, Federer had time on his hands.  Fans of Federer have begged for years to have Federer try out a bigger racquet, but much like his role model, Pete Sampras, Federer stubbornly clung to his 90 square inch racquet, the smallest in the market since, oh, say, Sampras when he played with an 85 sq in racquet.  They felt he was being passed by players using bigger racquets, most notably, Rafael Nadal who was playing with a 100 sq in racquet.

With this period of inactivity, Federer decided he would pull the trigger and move to a bigger racquet, but instead of making a more conservative change, up to 93 or 95 sq in, he jumped to 98 sq. in.  Initially, it was unclear whether he was making a change or not.  Federer decided to play the PR card and practiced in public with a black Wilson racquet which was visibly bigger than his own racquet.  Fans immediately speculated he was ready to make the change while others said it wasn’t real. Eventually, he was asked about it in an interview, and he admitted he was making a switch.

Top players have made switches before, some adjusting quicker than others.  Agassi, for example, started his career with a Prince, played with Donnay for about 2 years and won Wimbledon, then made his final switch to Head.  He seemed to suffer no ill effects.  Djokovic, who used Head early in his career, but was prominently using Wilson when he made a breakthrough in 2007, eventually switched back to Head.  He struggled for a few months (this was, I believe, in 2009) not faring well at the Australian Open before having a very solid clay court outing, then losing early at the French Open (with Nadal).

Fans felt with a bigger racquet, he would shank less, and hit with more power, but it turns out things are not so easy.  Federer knew his old racquet like the back of his hand, and this new beast was a strange, was going to take some getting used to, and he struggled some throughout the tournament.

Federer needed 3 sets to beat Daniel Brands of Germany, then beat Jan Hajek in straight sets, then was pushed by Florian Mayer to 3 sets, in a match where he broke in the third set, got broken back, broke again, got broken back again, before finally breaking and holding to take the set.

In the semis, Federer played Federico Delbonis, an Argentine ranked just above 100 in the world, who qualified in the tournament.  He’s 22 years old, which makes him young by today’s standards, as star teens in tennis are rare.

Delbonis may be an up and coming star.  He made some notice beating Tommy Robredo who played well at the French Open.  He’s a lefty that somewhat resembles Nadal.  His big match early in the tournament was beating Fernando Verdasco, who is having a resurgence lately, having reached the final of Bastad last week.  Delbonis had a break early in the first set, but ultimately Verdasco pulled out the first set in a tiebreak.  A combination of solid play by Delbonis and a mental meltdown by Verdasco (no surprise there) allowed Delbonis to save match points and take the second set in a long tiebreak, then to take the third set.

That meant Delbonis made it to the semis and would face Federer, and this is where you would imagine Federer’s experience and aura would win the match, but Federer struggled to break, only breaking once (Delbonis also only broke once).  Both sets went to tiebreaks which Delbonis won.

Delbonis would play Fabio Fognini who has been having a great few weeks having just won his first tournament in Stuttgart last week.  Delbonis won the first set and had match points in the second set, but couldn’t seal the deal as Fognini claimed his second title in two weeks, capturing the Hamburg event.  Delbonis may be an up and comer, though with the tour about to head to hard courts, we’ll have to see how well he transitions.

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OK back to Bogota.

The US used to host a large number of tournaments, but with so many countries vying for an ATP event of their own, and a clear separation between the Challenger level and ATP level, and because fans aren’t nearly as fanatic for tennis as they used to be, tournaments are leaving the United States.  In particular, two tournaments are no longer going to be in the US.  San Jose, which Milos Raonic won for the third consecutive year this year, is no longer a US event.  Los Angeles is also gone.  That leaves the US Open, Indian Wells, Miami, Cincinnati, Delray Beach, Houston, Newport, Memphis, Atlanta, Washington DC, and Winston Salem.  That’s a lot, but the US used to host twice as many tournaments back in the day.

Bogota acquired the Los Angeles event.  You would think a tournament, hosted in Colombia, would be played on clay, but although the court was red, it is a hardcourt event, with a off-white color on the non-court.

The top two seeds in the tournament were Janko Tipsarevic, who has struggled all year, and Kevin Anderson who had a solid, if not spectacular clay season.  Despite being a replacement for a US event, and despite being on a hard court, no American made the trip to Colombia, at least, to play in the main draw.  Only the wildly unknown James Cerretani served as the lone American who played in qualifying.

The story of Bogota came down to three players: Vasek Pospisil, Alejandro Falla, and Ivo Karlovic.

Pospisil has been on-and-off playing as Davis Cup number 2 for Canada.  Canada, for years, struggled to find viable players for Davis Cup, lacking the powerhouse players of their neighbors to the south.  The one good singles players, Greg Rusedski, decided he was British (one of his parents is British) and eventually played for Great Britain.  Daniel Nestor has been their best player for a while as a doubles specialist, but doubles only comprises 1 match in 5, the rest being singles.

Many of Canada’s promising players reflect the melting pot of Canada.  Raonic’s family is originally from the former Yugoslavia.  Vasek Pospisil is of Czech descent.  Filip Peliwo, who had a great junior career, is of Polish descent.

Pospisil first came to fame, at least in Canada, in 2011 when Canada, trying to qualify for the World Group of Davis Cup, played Israel.  Israel, at the time, had only one solid top 50 player in Dudi Sela.  2011 was Raonic’s breakthrough year as he made it to the fourth round of the Australian Open, and won his first title in San Jose beating Verdasco in the finals.  However, Raonic got injured, and although he made the trip, he wasn’t 100%.  If it hadn’t been for Davis Cup, he would probably have skipped.

As it turns out, Pospisil upset Dudi Sela, which would have put Canada ahead, except Raonic lost to Weintraub, Israel’s number 2.  Pospisil then teamed with Daniel Nestor to beat the Israeli veteran team of Erlich and Ram.  With Raonic out, Peter Polansky played the reverse singles against Sela and predictably lost.  That left Pospisil to play the fifth rubber and beat Weintraub.

However, Pospisil’s rise in the rankings has been somewhat slow as he’s mostly played Challengers.  This year, Pospisil has been getting into Slams, and his results have been decent.  At Wimbledon, in particular, he pushed veteran Mikhail Youzhny to five sets and even had an early break in the fifth, before the wily Russian broke back twice to take the fifth set.

Pospisil had a nice-ish draw, but given his ranking is around 90, no match is easy.  He beat Prysiezny, a Polish player, in 3 sets in the opening round, then James Duckworth of Australia in 3 sets, then Matteo Viola of Italy in 3 sets.  This lead Pospisil to his first ATP semifinal.

There, he faced Alejandro Falla who has been waving the Colombian flag and wanted to make a good impression at home.  It probably doesn’t hurt that he’s used to the altitude of Bogota, tends to play close up to the baseline, and might actually prefer grass to clay.  Remember, he was the guy that nearly upset Federer in the opening round of Wimbledon a few years ago.  Falla beat Pospisil in three sets to reach the final.

That leads us to the last piece of the puzzle.  Ivo Karlovic, of Croatia, is probably the tallest player in tennis.  A 6’10”, he might have been a good basketball player.  While Isner and Roddick are famed for their serves, Karlovic may still have the best serve in tennis.  How else to explain why a player his height with a deficiency on backhand and movement still has chances to win tournaments?

Karlovic came to some fame back in 2003 when he beat Lleyton Hewitt in the first round of Wimbledon, a title that Hewitt won the year before.  Karlovic was a qualifier back then.

While everyone says Karlovic is just a serve, that’s often not enough to win on the tour.  There are big servers like Kenny de Schepper or Chris Guccione whose name you never heard of because the rest of their games don’t match their serve.  For Karlovic, he has a pretty big forehand, enough that he can dictate with it.  He serviceably slices his backhand, and his movement, like most big men, is a bit suspect.  Karlovic actually volleys pretty well.  Given his height, few people try to lob the big man.

The downside for Karlovic is injuries.  He had an ankle that was slow to heal, and a few months ago, he had viral meningitis that was severe enough that he said he couldn’t recall what year it was.  Karlovic returned back to play at Newport where he won a few rounds.  But at Bogota, in altitude, his serve was humming.  He did not lose serve all week long, beating Sisjling, Mannarino, and Kevin Anderson, all seeded players, to reach the finals against Falla.

Again, the big serve told the story as he took the first set, 6-3, and then had chances to break at 5-all in the second.  He failed to convert, but took the tiebreak, thus claiming his first title in 5 years, and becoming the second oldest player on tour to win a title (behind Tommy Haas).

Next week, Federer plays in Switzerland at Gstaad, giving his racquet another whirl at home.  Also, the US Open series starts in Atlanta.