LONDON — Third seed Andy Murray dropped a set but emerged unharmed from the sights of bullet-serving Croat Ivo Karlovic to reach the quarter-finals at Wimbledon for the eighth consecutive time with a 7-6(7) 6-4 5-7 6-4 victory on Monday.
The towering Karlovic had walloped down 136 aces in his first three matches and regularly fired down 130mph missiles, but looked on his way out as Murray took a two-set lead.
A cat-and-mouse third set, however, was decided when Karlovic broke in the 12th game, injecting some much-needed life into the match on Centre Court.
Murray, however, had too much guile for the Croat and broke in the seventh game of the fourth, before serving out to set up a last eight clash against Canada's Vasek Pospisil.