Zagreb, Croatia, 5 February 2014 | AP

Croatia’s Ivo Karlovic has hit 44 aces at the Zagreb Indoors tournament matching the record set by Mark Philippoussis in the number of aces in a best-of-three match.

The towering Karlovic beat Daniel Brands of Germany 6-7(4) 7-5 7-6(3) on Tuesday to advance to the second round.

In 1995 Australia’s Philippoussis delivered 44 aces in Kuala Lumpur in a match against Byron Black of Zimbabwe.