FanHouse Ivo Karlovic

SHANGHAI (AP) -- James Blake rallied to defeat Ivo Karlovic of Croatia 3-6, 7-6 (4), 6-3 Monday in the first round of the Shanghai Masters.

The American was broken early in the first set but won the second when Karlovic sent a forehand wide in the tiebreaker.

"I didn't have very good momentum at the start," said Blake, who recently started working with coach Kelly Jones. "The third set, I liked the way, when I did get my racket on it, how I was playing."

POREC, Croatia (AP) -- Radek Stepanek overcame a record 78 aces to defeat Ivo Karlovic in five sets in one of the longest matches in tennis history, giving the Czech Republic a 1-0 lead over Croatia in the Davis Cup semifinals Friday.

Stepanek won 6-7 (5), 7-6 (5), 7-6 (6), 6-7 (2), 16-14 in a grueling match that lasted 5 hours, 59 minutes. The longest known Davis Cup match was 6 hours, 22 minutes between John McEnroe and Mats Wilander in 1982.

"I feel like I was in a 10-round boxing match," Karlovic said. "Everything hurts."

WIMBLEDON, England (AP) -- Tommy Haas's dream Wimbledon run continued on Wednesday when he unseated fourth seed Novak Djokovic 7-5, 7-6, 4-6, 6-3 in their quarter-final at the All England Club.

The German 24th seed, a first-time quarter-finalist here, broke in game 11 of the opening set and served out to take the lead after 45 minutes.

Djokovic wasted three set points in the second set tiebreak before Haas wrapped it up 8-6 before the Serb mounted a comeback by taking the third.

Let's start with Venus Williams. She's tall. And someone asked her the other day at Wimbledon if that might be a disadvantage for her.

"When I walk behind short people, I feel like I'm going to fall over because I start taking these little steps, and I can't take little steps," he said. "I take big steps. I've always been large, always been tall. I don't know anything about small."

And maybe I should put in a disclaimer here: Even though I'm 6-foot-4, I don't have anything against short tennis players. Many of them look awfully cute running around down there.

This is why the serve has a bad reputation in tennis. Some people see it as a gimmick, like a card trick. Sure, some tall guy like Ivo Karlovic hit a tour-level record 55 aces Sunday in the first round of the French Open.

But can he play? The serve is discarded entirely, as if it's not part of the game at all.

In this case, the answer is no. Karlovic cannot play.

I think it's safe to say that for most Americans, the Australian Open is something of the lost Grand Slam of tennis. Played for the most part while most of America is snug in bed in the middle of Winter in the Northern Hemisphere, it's easy to forgive most folks for having the NFL Playoffs, the NBA and NCAA Basketball on their minds this time of year.

That's too bad, especially this year as the Australian Open features at least one quirky story that tennis fans ought to be paying attention to, at least outside of Serena Williams needing a course in remedial blogging. What I'm talking about is the interesting men's doubles pairing of 6-10 Ivo Karlovic and 6-9 John Isner.

As Joe Fleming of USA Today wrote yesterday:

Consider: With their wingspans - Karlovic about 7 feet, 2 1/2 inches and Isner 7-1 1/2 - plus an additional 27 inches of racket on either side, they can gobble up nearly two-thirds of the 36-foot width of the court. One big step covers the rest.

And both can bring 130- to 140-mph heat on their serves; Karlovic led the ATP Tour in aces in 2007 (1,318 total, 20.6 a match).

That's the two of them pictured above with Justin Heinz, the shortest ball boy at the Open this year.