Hanging in there against the big-serving Isner, Johnson weathered a total of 12 set points and withstood 29 aces to win their all-American quarterfinal at the Citi Open 7-6 (7), 7-6 (15) on Friday.
Advertisement
Karlovic has seven titles to his name, and he has won two of four previous meetings against Monfils.
French second seed Gael Monfils avoided the upset bug by downing USA eighth seed Sam Querrey 6-4, 3-6, 6-1. Monfils did his best to get the return in play and did just that and forced the Croat in what should have been an easy putaway, but he hit it the volley long to give Monfils the break back. He is 7-8 so far.
Last week, at the Newport grass-court tournament in Rhode Island, Karlovic became the oldest man since Marty Riessen in 1979 to win an ATP singles title.
When Johnson held a pair of break points at 15-40 in the next game, Karlovic responded by hitting three consecutive aces, then a service victor to hold for 3-1.
Belgian seventh seed Yanina Wickmayer and Kazakh sixth seed Yulia Putintseva will meet in a later women s semi-final with the victor to face an American, either 122nd-ranked Lauren Davis or 173rd-rated Jessica Pegula, in Sunday s final. He would go double-fault at 15-40 to gift Karlovic the break. I’m not used to that.
The Men’s Final will take place at 3 p.m. Sunday between Ivo Karlovic of Croatia against Gael Monfils of France. I think that she will win the title in three sets.
Meanhwhile, the red hot Ivo Karlovic defeats the higher ranked world no. 25 Steve Johnson to reach his second consecutive final appearance of the year.
“Today was pure luck”, Monfils said.
epa05438594 Gael Monfils of France returns a shot against Alexander Zverev of Germany during their semifinals match of the Citi Open tennis tournament, at Rock Creek Park Tennis Center in Washington, DC, USA, 23 July 2016.
A runner-up at this event in 2011, Monfils won the tiebreaker and broke Karlovic again early in the third set before going on to his sixth career ATP title.
“This has just been an wonderful week for me”, said Wickmayer, who also won the women’s doubles crown alongside Romania’s Monica Niculescu. Returners meet their chances in the final two games of the set, and it was Ivo who took the a lot of them. He served above 70% and his forehand worked well in the first part of the match, but he was just powerless in front of such a strong rival, who stayed focused from first to the last point, determined to finally lift an ATP trophy after a long drought. In the tie-breaker, Karlovic had match point at 6-5 but Monfils answered with two service winners of his own and Karlovic netted a forehand volley to surrender the set.
“I knew I was capable always of winning a title – and, hopefully, multiple titles”, Johnson said. 6-4 saving a match point.
Advertisement
Top-seeded Venus Williams booked her semi-final berth at the WTA hardcourt tournament in Stanford, California, on Friday with a 6-4, 6-1 victory over 17-year-old wild card CiCi Bellis.
