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Former world No. 14 Ivo Karlovic has left the door open to possibly playing beyond the US Open. Karlovic, now ranked at No. 221 in the world, suffered a first round loss at the US Open on Monday as Andrey Rublev claimed a 6-3 7-6 (3) 6-3 loss to the big-serving Croatian.
Karlovic, 42, isn't happy with his current ranking and he doesn't seem to be too interested in playing Challengers at this stage of his career. "I have to decide now. My rankings is not that high now (around 210), which means that I would have to play challengers.
Now I have to decide whether I want to do that or not," Karlovic said after his US Open exit, as revealed by Sasa Ozmo.
Karlovic was planning to retire at the US Open
In July, Los Cabos tournament director Geoffrey Fernandez revealed Karlovic was given a wild card for the Mexican event because he was planning to retire at the US Open.
Karlovic won the inaugural edition of Los Cabos in 2016 and they wanted to pay him respect by giving him a wild card. "Ivo Karlovic told us that he will retire at the US Open and we are grateful to him, we are very fond of him for being our first champion.
It is good and deserved to see him off like this," Fernandez said. Unfortunately for Karlovic, he didn't impress in Los Cabos as he lost to Australian Jordan Thompson in his opener at the tournament. "My ranking dropped a lot and how it looks like now, after the US Open, I think I'm going to retire," Karlovic said after the Thompson loss.
"But there is still a chance that until then I'll do well or that at the US Open I'll do really well and then I will reconsider." It remains to be seen what will Karlovic decide going forward.