Ivo Karlovic and Gael Monfils showed the most this week in Washington, to be in a deserved final.
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France’s Gael Monfils saved a match point and battled back with sharp returns in sweltering heat to defeat Ivo Karlovic 5-7, 7-6 (8/6), 6-4 in Sunday’s Washington Open final.
Karlovic, 37, saw off Gilles Muller to claim the Hall of Fame Tennis Championships last week, in doing so becoming the oldest victor on the ATP World Tour since Marty Riessen in 1979.
“It came down to a few points Today to be honest was pure luck”.
Karlovic, who will jump into the top 30 in the rankings, broke to lead 5-4 in the second set but again handed Monfils triple break point only to save them all.
Monfils staved off a match point in the second set en route to his first victory since February 2014 at at Montpellier, France. Monfils was 2 of 3 (67%) in second serve points won, while Zverev was 2 of 9 (22%). Despite being extremely reliant on his serve, the fact that Karlovic is still playing at such a high level at age 37 is impressive. With that, an energized Monfils, along with the crowd, celebrated taking the match into a decider.
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. The temperature approached 100 degrees Saturday, prompting Karlovic to say afterward: “There was this moment where I wanted to lay down”.
Monfils’ opponent in the Citi Open title match, Ivo Karlovic, was about to serve for the championship and had not been broken all week.
Since losing his first six matches of 2016, Karlovic has gone 16-7. He would go double-fault at 15-40 to gift Karlovic the break.
At 4-all, Karlovic secured a service break after Monfils let a volley sail long.
In Johnson’s second service game, less than 15 minutes in, he missed a shot at deuce to hand over a break point and angrily smacked a ball. Then he forced Karlovic’s forehand return miscue with a 134-mph serve to end the match. It was a valiant effort from Martin to maintain the positive result for so long, but one loose game cost him the set, and there was no coming back for him since then. Johnson saves set point once, but gets dominated by Karlovic 40-0 in the tenth game. Karlovic was also ahead in the return game, saving all three break point opportunities from Steve Johnson. “I was winning and winning and now I’m in the final, which is unbelievable”. “I wanted to make sure that I come to the net as quick as I can, and I was able to do it, so that was key in this match today”. “I didn’t want to go rallying with him because he is better at it, “said Karlovic”.
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In the other 2016 Washington Open final, the team of doubles world no. 22 Alexander Peya and doubles world no. 23 Lukasz Kubot advances to the final over doubles world no. 29 Henri Kontinen and doubles world no. 13 John Peers. He earned a championship point with a backhand passing shot down the line, his seventh backhand victor of the match that elicited some of the loudest cheers of the day.
