Wimbledon 2012: Karlovic 'cheat' claims sour Murray victory

Ivo Karlovic's size-16 trainers kicked off a major ruckus at Wimbledon yesterday, as the giant Croat accused the tournament's officials of deliberately favouring home hope Andy Murray.

"I mean, what is this?" Karlovic said, after being called for multiple foot-faults during the match. "Is it Davis Cup or is it Wimbledon? After this match, the whole credibility of this tournament went down for me."

A Wimbledon spokesperson declined to comment on Karlovic's allegations, which were made in the wake of Murray's 7-5, 6-7, 6-2, 7-6 victory. But it was an extraordinary attack on one of the world's most admired sporting events, and it is hard to see Karlovic ever receiving a wild card here in future.

Even Murray sounded a little bemused. "It's very tough to question the integrity of Wimbledon. I mean, it's got a lot of history, a lot of tradition. There's been thousands of matches played here over the years."

The fuss revolved around the position of Karlovic's front foot as he launched into his powerful service action. The officials decided that his toe was touching the white line before he struck the ball, and kept faulting him at key moments of the match.

Yet Karlovic insisted that he had never had a problem with foot-faults before. "In my whole life, ever since I was eight years old, I didn't do this many foot-faults. It was like 11 [in the match]. It was never called when it was like 30-Love or 40-Love. It was always when it was 30-All or in a tiebreak," he added. "Then I stand a little bit back but they still called. So it was outrageous. I mean, this is BS. I feel cheated."

Whether justified or not, Karlovic's foot-faults were clearly an important factor, for this was a match of small margins. Murray had to fall back on all his reserves of patience and self-control against his 6ft 10in opponent, whose prodigious serve allowed little opportunity to play a normal rally.

The second-set tie-break, which Karlovic won by seven points to five, was typical. In those 12 points, there were just 25 successful shots, serves included.

It was like a flashback to the days when Boris Becker and Kevin Curran first terrorised Wimbledon with their turbo-charged rackets and mad-axeman deliveries.

In the context of these staccato exchanges, a couple of faults at crucial moments could make the difference between a set won and a set lost. Yet for all Karlovic's rage, his allegations went overboard in a couple of important respects, which rather undermined the overall argument.

The first was the number of foot-faults: Karlovic's tally of 11 was obviously too high, and not all of those serves landed on target in any case. The second was his claim that the officials had not rotated in their normal way, which was clearly bogus. (There are two squads of line-judges and they alternate, spending one hour on court and one hour off).

In theory, Karlovic has opened himself to accusations of having brought the tournament into disrepute - an offence which could be punishable by fines or suspensions. But Wimbledon sources suggested that they are unlikely to crack down on comments made in the heat of the moment.

As for Murray, he was relaxed about the debate last night - as one might expect for a man who has produced some near-flawless tennis on the way to the third round.

"I would need to see the videos," Murray said. "If there were 11 foot-faults called against him and every one was incorrect, then that's completely wrong and unfair. But for it to happen that many times, you would think there would have been a number [incorrect]."

Murray's critics might point out that he lost a set yesterday, but you only have to look at his statistics - 43 winners to just eight unforced errors - to see that Karlovic earned it the hard way. "It's so challenging to get into a rhythm against him," Murray said. "You just need to try to concentrate really hard the whole match and not get too frustrated." The first sign that Murray was up against something out of the ordinary came when the players made the short walk from the locker room. You could see Karlovic's white cap bobbing along above the seven-foot fence at the back of Centre Court.

At 6ft 3in, Murray is hardly diminutive, but Karlovic looked like a member of a different species. This was Jack and the beanpole, the hobbit against Smaug.

One Karlovic serve hit the top of the fence and ricocheted all the way up into the Royal Box, narrowly missing Pippa Middleton.

It was even worse for the Chelsea Pensioners, who were stationed low down in the corner of the court, wearing all their military finery.

To Karlovic, they must have looked like a group of red skittles, and he was soon pinging them so regularly that by the end of the second set, their number had dwindled from eight to just one.

But Murray got enough serves back to keep Karlovic at bay. The crucial thing was to keep the ball in play, because rallies contested from the back of the court were only going to have one winner.

So Murray goes on to play Marcos Baghdatis tomorrow for a place in the last 16. Given that Baghdatis works with Miles Maclagan, Murray's friend and former coach, we can expect a more harmonious atmosphere.