Six years ago, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Ivo Karlovic met in the third round of the 2009 Wimbledon Championships to determine who would advance to the following stage of the event. It was a grueling four-set battle that eventually saw the towering Croat snatch victory with his characteristic tiebreaks. Now, with a 1-0 lead in the head-to-head series, Karlovic will look to recreate the scene once again in the third round of the Championships over half a decade later.

Although not impressed with his own showing on court, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga earned a comfortable straight sets win to advance to the third round at the All England Club. He defeated Spain’s Albert Ramos-Vinolas 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 to secure his place in Saturday’s schedule. It should be noted that the former two-time semi-finalist at Wimbledon has not reached the second week of the tournament in the last two years.

“I will say I did the best part of the job because I won, so that is five points. Then I served pretty good so that is two more points. Seven out of 10, I would say.”

In his scintillating battle against Alexandr Dolgopolov, Ivo Karlovic not only won the match but he also served 53 aces throughout the affair to end up with a total of 95 aces in his first two matches at the Championships. His match-up against Dolgopolov was a grueling affair that ended 5-7, 6-3, 6-4, 6-7(4), 13-11. He became the only player since 1991 to serve 40 aces or more in consecutive matches.

This marks just the second time that these two competitors will meet on the professional tour. While there is a six-year gap between matches, they two have gravitated back to Wimbledon, where their first meeting took place in 2009. While Tsonga would put up a significant fight, it was the towering Croat who eventually edged the Frenchman 7-6(5) 6-7(5) 7-5 7-6(5) to give himself a 1-0 lead in the head-to-head series.