Things start to get tougher for Andy Murray as he takes on the huge serving Ivan Ljubicic in the third round of Wimbledon.
It's the classic clash of a quality server against one of the world's best returners. For a man with such a big game Ljubicic has underachieved chronically at Wimbledon over the years. His serve should have taken him to at least one semi-final but even when he was at his best and ranked in the top five he still made regular first round exits at SW19.
However Ljubicic has looked more confident than ever on grass this year and took out him compatriot Marin Cilic in the first round. He then eased past Sergiy Stakhovsky (no mug on grass) 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 yesterday.
Murray produced an assured display to see off Tobias Kamke 6-3, 6-3, 7-5 in tricky, windy conditions on Wednesday but the fourth seed was unhappy with his tennis and is hoping for a strong improvement against Ljubicic.
"I've lost to Ljubicic a few times and I expect that to be a difficult match," Murray said. "He serves well and that always makes it difficult. I need to make sure I can return well, which I did very well at Queen's, and I need to do the same again on Friday."
However at 32, Ljubicic is not as quick around the court as he used to be and Murray, who is in peak physical condition, should be able to exploit that. The Ljubicic backhand is the danger wing but as long as Murray keeps most of the balls to the forehand in the baseline exchanges he should be fine.
Ljubicic outplayed Murray in Beijing last autumn during one of the Scot's slumps in form but he is in the form of his life right now and should take this one in three/four sets.
