Ivo Karlovic fired down 29 aces and saved one match point to beat #NextGen star Karen Khachanov 6-7(5), 7-6(5), 6-3 on Friday for a place in the Erste Bank Open 500 semi-finals. Karlovic saved a match point at 5-6, Advantage, in the second set and will next face sixth seed and 2011 champion Jo-Wilfried Tsonga or Albert Ramos-Vinolas on Saturday.

The 37-year-old Croatian has now struck an ATP World Tour-best 1,081 aces, ahead of John Isner (1,046), this year. He is one of the nominees for the Comeback Player of the Year Award in the 2016 ATP World Tour Awards Presented by Moët & Chandon.

Andy Murray, who is vying to replace Novak Djokovic at No. 1 in the Emirates ATP Rankings over the next few weeks, takes on John Isner later today, while fifth seed and defending champion David Ferrer faces Viktor Troicki.

The Comeback Player of the Year Award in the 2016 ATP World Tour Awards Presented by Moët & Chandon recognises those players who have overcome injury in re-establishing themselves as one of the top players on the ATP circuit. The winner, as selected by the players, will be announced ahead of the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals.

Julien Benneteau

The Frenchman finished 2014 at a career-high No. 25 Emirates ATP Ranking, but dropped to No. 696 by January 2016 after undergoing abductor surgery and missing the last eight months of the 2015 season.

The All England Club, where he notched his first tour-level win since his comeback, provided the springboard for his rise back up the singles ranks. He climbed into the Top 200 by October, highlighted by quarter-final results in Metz and Los Cabos and a semi-final run at the Brest Challenger.

An outstanding doubles player, Benneteau also enjoyed a strong comeback alongside countryman Edouard Roger-Vasselin. Over a four-tournament stretch, the pair reached the quarter-finals at Roland Garros, semi-finals at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia and Aegon Championships, before finishing runners-up to Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut in an all-French Wimbledon.

“It’s very special to be part of the Comeback Player of the Year category,” Benneteau said. “It’s always difficult to return at 100 per cent after a long break, especially when it’s later in one’s career so this means a lot to me.”

Juan Martin del Potro

The popular Argentine was previously voted by his peers as the Comeback Player of the Year in 2011 following a successful return from right wrist surgery. In 2013, the former World No. 4 finished back in the Top 10, only to be sidelined again – this time by a left wrist injury requiring multiple surgeries, causing him to drop outside the Top 1000 by the start of 2016.

Del Potro made his return in February at the Delray Beach Open and reached the semi-finals. He followed with a quarter-final result in Munich and semi-finals in Stuttgart, and quickly re-established himself as a force to be reckoned with on the sport’s biggest stages. In addition to ousting Stan Wawrinka at Wimbledon, del Potro beat World No. 1 Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal en route to a silver medal at the Rio Olympics, made the quarter-finals of the US Open and won his first tour-level title since 2014 at the If Stockholm Open, securing his return to the Top 50. 

“I’m so happy to be nominated for this,” said the 28 year old. “It’s been a great season for me. I’ve been playing a lot of tournaments with great success. I got the silver medal in Rio, then made the quarter-finals in another Grand Slam. I think I deserve this gift, but all my colleagues also deserve it too. I am so happy just to be nominated.”

Ivo Karlovic

At the age of 37, the towering Croat recovered from a left knee injury to notch his first multi-title season since winning his first three tour-level titles in 2007.

Karlovic missed the opening months of the season, returning in April to reach the TEB BNP Paribas Istanbul Open semi-finals. He made his biggest mark over the summer, when he secured titles on grass at the Hall of Fame Tennis Championships in Newport and on hard court at the inaugural Abierto Mexicano Mifel in los Cabos. With the Newport crown, he became the oldest ATP World Tour singles champion since 1979.

Also over the summer, Karlovic reached the ATP World Tour 500 final at the Citi Open in Washington and set a US Open record with 61 aces in his first-round win.

“I’m really happy and honoured and grateful that I was nominated for this award,” said Karlovic. “It really means a lot to me because in the beginning of the year, for the first four months I was injured with my knee. It was hurting a lot. I had to do a lot of exercises, treatment and hard work. Especially now at my age, when every injury is huge, I didn’t know how it will all end up. To be able to do what I did after the injury this year, to be able to bounce back like this, was really unbelievable for me.”

Florian Mayer

After being sidelined close to two years due to a groin injury and a torn tendon in his right adductor, the 33 year old climbed from outside the Top 600 of the Emirates ATP Rankings in 2015 to the Top 60.

Mayer used success on home soil to spark his rise, qualifying into the tour-level events in Munich and Stuttgart, where he respectively reached the second round and quarter-finals, before claiming his biggest career title at the ATP World Tour 500 tournament in Halle. The former World No. 18 upset two Top 10 players, Kei Nishikori and Dominic Thiem, before defeating fellow German Alexander Zverev for the Gerry Weber Open title – his first since winning Bucharest in 2011.

In August, Mayer went on a 10-match winning run on the ATP Challenger Tour, claiming titles in Portoroz and Meerbusch, to rise to No. 58 going into the US Open.

“It was really a hard time for me, not playing tournaments and being injured,” he said. “I did a really nice comeback, being back to the Top 60, and I’m really happy about my performance in the past five months. It was a really nice and special feeling to win a big title at ATP World Tour 500 this year on grass in Germany.

“Tennis is getting so much faster and fitter every year, and it’s so hard to come back, especially if you have to come through the Challengers. The level of the game increases so much, and of course it was really helpful for me to win this big title with 500 points, so I can play the big events now.”

Top seeds Jean-Julien Rojer/Horia Tecau came out on top in a tight quarter-final on Thursday at the Swiss Indoors Basel, moving past Treat Huey/Max Mirnyi, 6-7(9), 6-4, 10-4.

Rojer/Tecau are looking for their second ATP World Tour doubles title of 2016, having already prevailed in Madrid. Awaiting them in the final four is the winner of the match between third seeds Raven Klaasen/Rajeev Ram and Robert Lindstedt/Michael Venus.

Read: Klaasen/Ram Qualify For Barclays ATP World Tour Finals

Second seeds Nicolas Mahut/Edouard Roger-Vasselin enjoyed a routine quarter-final win over David Marrero/Marcin Matkowski, 6-1, 6-4. They’ll compete for a place in the final over fourth seeds Marcel Granollers/Jack Sock, who advanced via retirement over Dominic Inglot/Florin Mergea, 7-5, 2-2.

View The Emirates ATP Doubles Race To London

At the Erste Bank Open 500 in Vienna, top seeds Jamie Murray/Bruno Soares came out on top in their quarter-final over qualifiers Guillermo Duran/Mariusz Fyrstenberg, 7-6(5), 6-4. Next up for them is Oliver Marach/Fabrice Martin, who recorded the upset of the day in doubles over third seeds Feliciano Lopez/Marc Lopez, 6-1, 6-2.

The final win of the day in Vienna went to third seeds Lukasz Kubot/Marcelo Melo, who took out Steve Johnson/Philipp Petzschner, 7-5, 6-3. Awaiting them in the semi-fjnals is the winner of the match between second seeds Bob Bryan/Mike Bryan and Pablo Cuevas/Viktor Troicki.

Top seed Andy Murray continued his quest for World No. 1 on Thursday at the Erste Bank Open 500 in Vienna, weathering a marathon match against Gilles Simon to move into the quarter-finals, 4-6, 6-2, 6-2.

“It was a very long match, but I expected it to be very hard because it’s just that way against Gilles. You play a lot of long points. You feel like the harder you hit the ball, the harder it comes back,” said Murray. “You just have to try to use some variety, some slice and drop shots, and find that balance to get him out of his rhythm.”

Murray started out slowly by dropping his first two service games and trailing 5-2. Although he managed to break Simon and bring the opening set back on serve, the Frenchman broke him again at 5-4 to grab the lead.

Although the second and third sets appeared to be routine on paper for Murray, he was forced to win extended rallies in most points and endured three long deuce games in each set. At 2-2 in the final set, the Brit finally wore his opponent down and cruised through the last four games to prevail in two hours and 41 minutes.

Next up for Murray is big-serving John Isner. The Brit has dominated their FedEx ATP Head2Head 6-0, although two of those matches have gone to a deciding set. 

Viktor Troicki caused the first upset of the day with his second-round win over third seed Dominic Thiem, 6-2, 7-5. With Thiem’s loss, Gael Monfils has now officially qualified for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals.

Troicki didn’t drop serve once and displayed outstanding resilience in the second set by saving all seven break points against him. He only needed a single break point opportunity at 5-5 in the second set and comfortably closed out the match on his serve in the next game.

Troicki has enjoyed success in Vienna by coming through qualifying to reach the semi-finals in 2014. The Serbian improved his FedEx ATP Head2Head over Thiem to 2-0 and recorded his second Top 10 victory this month, having ousted Rafael Nadal two weeks ago at the Shanghai Rolex Masters.

Awaiting him in the quarter-finals is fifth seed David Ferrer, a 6-2, 7-6(4) winner over Joao Sousa. Ferrer leads his FedEx ATP Head2Head with Troicki 3-1, but they haven’t faced each other in more than two years. 

Former champion Jo-Wilfried Tsonga recovered from a 2-4 deficit in the first set to beat Philipp Kohlschreiber 7-6(6), 6-2 in 89 minutes for a place in the quarter-finals. Tsonga, the 2011 titlist, now has a 10-1 FedEx ATP Head2Head record against Kohlschreiber. He will next meet Albert Ramos-Vinolas, who fought back from a set and 0-2 deficit to knock out 2009 and 2010 champion Jurgen Melzer 3-6, 6-4, 6-0.

DAY 5 PREVIEW: An outstanding quarter-final line-up on Friday at the Erste Bank Open 500 features top seed and World No. 2 Andy Murray, reigning champion/No. 5 David Ferrer, No. 6 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and No. 8 Ivo Karlovic, who leads the ATP World Tour this season in aces.

In the opening match on Centre Court, Karlovic takes on #NextGen Russian star Karen Khachanov for the second time. The big-serving Croat, who is appearing in his eighth ATP World Tour quarter-final of the season, won the previous meeting 64 60 in the quarter-finals of Moscow in 2013. Khachanov was 17 years old at the time and ranked No. 808 (making his ATP World Tour QF debut) while Karlovic was No. 86. Karlovic, a two-time title winner this season, leads the ATP World Tour with 1,052 aces, just ahead of Isner (1,046). Earlier this month Khachanov captured his maiden ATP World Tour title in Chengdu (d. Ramos-Vinolas). He is making his third ATP World Tour quarter-final showing of the year.

In the next match on, Tsonga brings in a 4-0 head-to-head record against Albert Ramos-Vinolas. This is their first indoor meeting. Tsonga, who won the Vienna title five years ago, is appearing in his eighth quarter-final of the season. The 31-year-old Frenchman is 2-5 in QF matches and he’s trying to reach his first final of the season. The 28-year-old Spaniard is putting together his best season on the ATP World Tour with a 33-29 match record (most wins) and personal-best No. 26 Emirates ATP Ranking this week. He captured his maiden ATP World Tour title in Bastad in July (d. Verdasco) and was runner-up in Chengdu (l. to Khachanov). He is 3-4 in QF matches.

In the last afternoon match, Serbian No. 2 Viktor Troicki takes on Ferrer, who owns a 3-1 head-to-head record. Troicki, who is making his seventh QF showing of the season, is No. 28 in the Emirates ATP Rankings and he is trying to finish in the Top 30 for the fifth time in his career. In the opening month of the season he won his third career ATP World Tour title in Sydney (d. Dimitrov). Ferrer, who is playing in his ninth QF of the season, is trying to reach his first ATP World Tour final in 2016 and keep alive a streak of 11 straight years with a final appearance.

In the evening session, Murray takes a 6-0 head-to-head record against No. 2 American John Isner. Murray has won 16 of the previous 19 sets and is 6-2 in tie-breaks. Murray comes in with a 12-match winning streak after sweeping Chinese titles without dropping a set (20-0) in Beijing and ATP Masters 1000 Shanghai. Murray leads the ATP World Tour with 67 match wins this season and his six titles is second-most behind Novak Djokovic (seven), who is trying to hold off the Briton and finish No. 1 for the third straight year and fifth time overall. Murray trails by 1,415 points in the Emirates ATP Rankings but Djokovic still has 2,300 points to defend while Murray has 1,075 dropping off. Isner, who is No. 2 in aces this year (1,046), is looking to break a five-match losing streak vs. Top 10 opponents. His last win came over No. 2 Federer in the 3R at ATP Masters 1000 Paris last November.

In the final match, a doubles quarter-final features No. 2 seeds Bob and Mike Bryan against Pablo Cuevas and Troicki. The Bryans already have qualified for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in London. The Bryans are one win away from becoming the first team in the Open Era with 1,000 match wins (999-309).