MELBOURNE, Australia -- On what may well turn out to be the hottest day of the fortnight, no one sizzled at this Australian Open quite like Ivo Karlovic.
The spidery 6-foot-11 Croatian is known for his thumping, barely seeable aces, but Tuesday night he outdid himself.
In a 5-hour, 15-minute match against Horacio Zeballos of Argentina, Karlovic dropped the first two sets but prevailed 6-7 (6), 3-6, 7-5, 6-2, 22-20.
"This is what I will, after my career, remember," Karlovic said. "If it was easy match or I lost easy, I wouldn't remember. But this one, definitely, I will remember forever."
The 37-year-old, ranked No. 21 among ATP World Tour players, hit 75 aces -- the most in an Australian Open match since statisticians started counting them in 1991.
The match didn't quite approach the epic confrontation between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut in the first round at Wimbledon in 2010 that ended at 70-68 in the fifth set. But it did rank among the top matches in several categories:
• Karlovic's 75 aces are the fourth most in ATP history. Isner fired 113 aces in that marathon match at Wimbledon, while Mahut finished with 103. Karlovic also has the third-best total: 78 in a 2009 Davis Cup match against Radek Stepanek.
• It was the longest fifth set at the Australian Open in the Open era, in term of games, besting the 21-19 effort of Andy Roddick over Younes El Aynaoui here in a 2003 quarterfinal. It was also the second longest of any Grand Slam after Isner-Mahut.
• It was the second-longest Open era match in Australian Open history, outdistanced only by the massive and muscular 5-hour, 53-minute final in 2012 between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal.
"Actually, I was thinking about that other match, Isner against Mahut," Karlovic joked afterward. "I was hoping little bit it could go this long so I could also have the record."
Karlovic won the match, converting his second match point, when Zeballos couldn't track down a lob and knocked the ball well wide.
Karlovic also registered an astounding 141 winners. Zeballos finished with 33 aces and 96 winners.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.