Watch: Ivo Karlovic's opponent stands on chair for post-match hug

It's been quite the 24 hours for tall tennis players. First, Maria Sharapova towered over Floyd Mayweather at the ESPYs. Then, Caroline Wozniacki bragged about
Watch: Ivo Karlovic's opponent stands on chair for post-match hug
Watch: Ivo Karlovic's opponent stands on chair for post-match hug /

It's been quite the 24 hours for tall tennis players. First, Maria Sharapova towered over Floyd Mayweather at the ESPYs. Then, Caroline Wozniacki bragged about being able wear heels now that she's no longer with Rory McIlroy, and now the tallest of them all, Ivo Karlovic, gets his moment.

The 6-foot-11 Croatian hit 16 aces on his way to a 7-6 (8), 7-6 (5) over Dudi Sela to advance to the quarterfinals of the Colombia Open in Bogota on Thursday. As Sela walked to the net for the post-match handshake, he took a slight detour. The 5-foot-9 Sela grabbed a chair, dragged it to the net and used it to give Karlovic a hug. I guess the man wanted to look his vanquisher in the eye. 

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“After I won, I was going to the net to have a handshake and then I look at him and he’s going back to get a chair,” Karlovic said. “I didn’t know what he was going to do and then he arrives and he gives me a hug, which was unbelievable and hilarious. Obviously he needed a hug, so I hugged him back."

Here's another angle of the hug:

Sela joked he was still shorter than Karlovic even on the chair. 

“I played five times with him and today I didn’t play bad,” he said. “It was one point here or there, it was 7-6, 7-6, so to finish like this I didn’t mind. Some matches you feel very upset after the loss; I was OK with the loss. I played OK. He played better than me in the big points, so I said it’s going to be OK and I accepted this.

“We’re good friends and I really like him. He’s a very nice guy. I always wanted to hug him, but I didn’t have the chance, and today I think was a good moment. I saw the chair, and I thought it would be nice to finish the match like this with a hug, so the crowd will see it’s OK.”


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Courtney Nguyen
COURTNEY NGUYEN

Contributor, SI.com Nguyen is a freelance writer for SI.com, providing full coverage of professional tennis both on and off the court. Her content has become a must-read for fans and insiders to stay up-to-date with a sport that rarely rests. She has appeared on radio and TV talk shows all over the world and is one of the co-hosts of No Challenges Remaining, a weekly podcast available on iTunes. Nguyen graduated from the University of California, Irvine in 1999 and received a law degree from the University of California, Davis in 2002. She lives in the Bay Area.