Ivo Karlovic, seeking back-to-back titles on different surfaces at age 37, advanced to the ATP and WTA Washington Open finals on Saturday by defeating USA fifth seed Steve Johnson 6-4, 6-4. “I’m really excited. I’ve been playing really well”.
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Karlovic then was a single point from victory at 6-5 in the ensuing tiebreaker, but a 116 miles per hour serve by Monfils produced a backhand return that sailed long.
“I was serving for the match [at 5-4]”. I was able to scrap out the first set.
In the tie-breaker, Karlovic hit a service victor to reach match point at 6-5 but Monfils answered with two service winners of his own and Karlovic then netted a forehand volley to surrender the set.
Karlovic, who won his seventh career ATP title last week on Newport grass to become the oldest tour singles champion since 1979, will play Sunday s final against the victor of a later match between seventh-seeded German 19-year-old Alexander Zverev and French second seed Gael Monfils. The temperature approached 100 degrees Saturday, prompting Karlovic to say afterward: “There was this moment where I wanted to lay down”.
Belgian seventh seed Yanina Wickmayer ousted Kazakh sixth seed Yulia Putintseva 6-4, 6-2 and will play Sunday for her fifth WTA title against an American, either 122nd-rated Lauren Davis or 173rd-ranked Jessica Pegula.
In the deciding third set, Monfils finally looked confident returning Karlovic’s serve and broke him in the third game. “I was throwing up all night, dehydrated – in these conditions I was dead out there after three games”, Zverev said.
It was the first time all tournament that Karlovic had dropped serve. But Monfils found success on the hard courts in the nation’s capital, capturing his first ATP 500 tournament.
Monfils entered Sunday’s final having lost in his last two finals earlier this season in Rotterdam and Monte Carlo.
Croatian Ivo Karlovic hits a forehand during Sunday’s Citi Open final at Rock Creek Park Tennis Center. She will play Camila Giorgi, who received a walk over.
“The crowd has been awesome”, Monfils said.
Here’s how Isner explained it: “I pulled up and got tentative”. “I was going to win but I lose my serve”.
Karlovic was broken in the third game of the decider and it proved fatal to his chances, Monfils needing just one of two match points to record what had appeared an unlikely victory.
With a sliding second serve followed up by a big backhand victor, Monfils now held match points. With that, an energized Monfils, along with the crowd, celebrated taking the match into a decider.
“You know when you have a title, definitely you want to defend it”, he said, “but I always say, I don’t know the schedule of next year”.
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In their first appearance together at the Citi Open, the second-seeded team of Canada’s Daniel Nestor and France’s Edouard Roger-Vasselin defeated Poland’s Lukasz Kubot and Austria’s Alexander Peya, 7-6 (7-3), 7-6 (7-4), to win the men’s doubles title.
