Johnson cuts the lead down to one with a 40-0 win in the fifth game, but drops two of the next three to give Karlovic a chance at match point, 5-3, heading into the ninth game.
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Following a rain delay, though, Johnson clawed his way back to win the first set in a tiebreaker and then finish off the match at 6-2.
“You’re never too tall to lob”. Then he forced Karlovic’s forehand return miscue with a 134-mph serve to end the match.
“It wasn’t the plan but I knew that for him to serve and volley for two hours in the heat will be hard”, Monfils reflected on the win. “It means a lot to me and I’m very proud”.
“If it was a normal match I would have won it right there”, Karlovic said. A year ago, Johnson lost to Isner in the semifinals but this time managed to beat the only American player ranked in front him.
When he lost the first tiebreaker on Johnson’s forehand victor, Isner mangled his racket by slamming it to the court. On his second set point, at 6-4, he got a good look at a short return by Johnson but shanked a forehand long. “I was very lucky he missed that volley”, Monfils said. “I don’t know what happened”.
Here’s how Isner explained it: “I pulled up and got tentative”. The 10 break opportunities split evenly between Karlovic and Johnson, but Karlovic was able to convert two of his for a break in each set. But Johnson saved all six break chances Isner accumulated and wound up with 22 aces himself. I put more pressure on him than he did on me.
Johnson, who is now closing in on Isner’s American number one ranking, will face Ivo Karlovic in the semi-finals after the Croatian sent down 26 aces as he edged past Jack Sock 7-6 (7/4) 7-6 (8/6). It was a balanced battle in the first 8 games of the second set, with the result squared at 4-4, before Ivo made an unexpected break, despite Gael having 3 game points. He’ll play Johnson on Saturday.
In the women’s final, Belgian seventh seed Yanina Wickmayer – a 2009 US Open semi-finalist – defeated 122nd-ranked American Lauren Davis 6-4, 6-2, to capture her fifth WTA title and her first since previous year in Tokyo.
In women’s action, third-seeded Monica Puig lost to Lauren Davis, 6-4, 6-2; fourth-seeded Kristina Mladenovic beat 2013 Wimbledon runner-up Sabine Lisicki, 6-3, 6-3; Risa Ozaki edged Naomi Broady, 6-1, 5-7, 6-4; and Camila Giorgi advanced when Tamira Paszek withdrew before their match because of an upper respiratory infection. But Karlovic erased that with what else? Karlovic got things back to deuce but then faced another break point.
Tournament director Jeff Newman said the scheduling was affected by rain that washed out play earlier in the week and court assignments are based on various factors such as “a television perspective, a fan perspective, how the draws are matched up”.
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.
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The title is the fourth ATP crown for the 29-year-old Italian.
