The American looked back at “an awesome week” and acknowledged that Ferrer deserved the win as “he played fantastic all week”.
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“I beat two top 20 players here (John Isner and Karlovic) so things are improving for me”.
Ferrer, who joins Roger Federer on five titles this year – the pair are second behind Novak Djokovic on nine – now stands in solid contention for one of the two remaining places in the eight-man field for the World Tour Finals starting November 15. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga is ninth on 2,500 points, with Richard Gasquet (2,445) in 10th spot.
The top seed earned the break he needed for 6-5 before finishing off the contest on the first of three match points after two and a quarter hours.
“I am in a good position for London, but I have yet to qualify”.
“This tournament is becoming more and more special for me”, Cilic said.
“I had an awesome week and am super-proud about how I played. It would be a bonus for me to be there in London, but the goal now is to win tomorrow”.
He will face world number 47 Steve Johnson in the final.
Japan’s world No. 92 Misaki Doi claimed her first career title Sunday with a 6-4, 6-7 (7/9), 6-0 win over Germany’s Mona Barthel in the final of the Luxembourg Open.
“It was a very tough match and hard to beat Steve, who has a good serve and played aggressively throughout the match”, Ferrer said.
“It’s gonna be fun”.
“It was such a great event for me”, Johnson said. “Coming back for a second year in a row and to win it again, it gives me huge, huge satisfaction and huge pleasure”. Serve both let them down in second set, especially Anderson, who went from 81% to 46% of second serve realization, but they saved 7 break points in total to force a tie break.
Johnson fired 27 winners and committed just a dozen unforced errors while the patchy Gulbis was plagued by 29 miscues.
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Gulbis, ranked 117th after once standing in the Top 10, had looked to be on the road to rehabilitation after injuries this season.
