LONDON, June 23: Croatian giant Ivo Karlovic starred in his own fantastical Wimbledon fairytale on Monday, beating champion Lleyton Hewitt to create history on the world’s most famous tennis stage.

Standing 6 foot 10 inches (2.083 metre) in his bare feet, Karlovic is the tallest man to have played the Grand slam in its 127-year history.

But despite this, he barely registers on the tennis radar.

Until Monday’s first round match he had played just 10 matches at full Tour level — and never at a Grand Slam.

But in front of a spellbound Centre Court crowd, the Goliath downed the Australian top seed 1-6 7-6 6-3 6-4.

It was an incredible result and one which left Hewitt saddled with the unwanted tag as first champion since tennis turned professional in 1968 to lose in the first round.

“I was a little bit lucky, but that’s life,” Karlovic stuttered.

Clearly enjoying his new-found celebrity, he added: “I really enjoyed playing this. I am excited... (but) I believe I’m going to realise some other day that I won.”

Karlovic struggles with his speech, suffering from a severe stammer, but on Monday needed no words at all to carve his own piece of sporting history.

The fairytale finish was more outrageous than even the plots of the Rocky movies from which Hewitt draws inspiration, but Karlovic made it happen in front of a spellbound fans.

Hewitt left court shell-shocked, beaten by a man who had scraped together just four full Tour level wins and $155,772 in three years hacking round the circuit.

But all the Australian’s millions and tournament titles could not save him from his fate.

Only once before in the tournament’s 126-year history had a champion lost in the opening round. That was in 1967 when Manuel Santana lost to Charlie Pasarell, and Hewitt will have much soul-searching to do.

“It’s hard to say now that I will go away and learn something from this but yeah, hopefully I will,” Hewitt said.

“You know, I think anyone would struggle getting those serves back all the time. I just didn’t take my chances.”

His girlfriend Kim Clijsters followed Hewitt on to court and was clearly in a hurry to get off and console him.

The women’s second seed swept past Paraguayan Rossana Neffa-De los Rios 6-0 6-0 in just 32 minutes.

Clijsters was joined in round two by fourth seed Venus Williams who battered her way past qualifer Stanislava Hrozenska 6-2 6-2 in 50 minutes.

Looking every inch the queen of sunny Court Two in her silver tiara-like hairband and dangling earrings, the twice former champion simply overpowered the world number 194.

Men’s fifth seed Andy Roddick blasted past Italy’s Davide Sanguinetti 6-2 6-3 6-3. The 20-year-old American, fresh from winning on grass at the Stella Artois Championships, rained down 14 aces in a devastating display of power-hitting on Court One.

Roddick, who has never been beyond the third round at the All England Club, will face fellow big server Rusedski in the second round if the Briton wins his first-round clash with Alexander Waske of Germany later on Monday.

Roddick and Rusedski share the record of 149 miles (239.8 km) per hour for the world’s fastest serve.

Britain’s Lee Childs showed Rusedski the way, beating Russian 33rd seed Nikolay Davydenko 2-6 7-6 1-6 7-6 6-2. He won match point on a lucky net cord but it was a well-deserved victory.

Thai 12th seed Paradorn Srichaphan was pushed all the way by Slovakia’s Dominik Hrbaty before edging him out 6-3 6-4 4-6 3-6 6-3.

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