6ft 10in Karlovic: I will be overlooked as football fever grips Croatian homeland

Ivo Karlovic is taking a back seat in his home country with the Croatians making progress at Euro 2008

But with the Croatia football team through to the quarter-finals of Euro 2008, Karlovic does not think his progress will be attracting much attention.

He said: "Croatia's a very proud country so something like that, everybody likes. Soccer is a lot more popular than tennis so there is no comparison."

However, if he could match national hero Goran Ivanisevic's achievement of winning Wimbledon, that would be a different matter.

"Then it would be almost equal," he quipped.

Britain's Alex Bogdanovic tipped Karlovic's countryman Marin Cilic for big things after losing to the 19-year-old 6-4 6-4.

Bogdanovic, 24, fought back from two breaks down in both sets but world number
55 Cilic eventually clinched victory on his seventh match point.

"He's still young and he's only going to get better," said Bogdanovic. "He's got the potential to be top 20 easily.

"He's really tall and he's got solid ground strokes and a big serve."

British number four Bogdanovic came through three rounds of qualifying to reach
the main draw before beating compatriot James Ward in the first round on
Tuesday.

He has been given a wild card for Wimbledon and feels his progress this week bodes well for SW19 - depending on tomorrow's draw.

"I've tried to get as many matches under my belt as possible, this was my fifth match and I've won four so I'm feeling pretty good," he said.

"I have to wait and see what kind of draw I get but I'm looking forward to it and I'm ready to see what I can do next week."

Bogdanovic certainly had the chance to push Cilic to a deciding set, and he was pleased to have fought back after initially saving match points at 1-5.

"The conditions were tough, it was a little windy and Marin's a solid player so it was always going to be a tough match," he said.

"I didn't serve too well and I couldn't hold serve out there.

"But it was good to get back into the match even though he served out for it at 5-4.

"It's tough to be aggressive when you play a top player and with the conditions as well.

"Most of the time he was dictating the play to me. Maybe if I'd won the first
point at 4-5, when I had an easy forehand, and broken anything could have
happened, but I enjoyed the experience."