Ivo Karlovic And Gilles Muller Set Serve And Volley Battle In Newport Final - UBITENNIS

Ivo Karlovic And Gilles Muller Set Serve And Volley Battle In Newport Final

By Carlo Maria Giorgi
3 Min Read

 

Ivo Karlovic,38, will seek his seventh Atp World Tour singles title. Photo by atpworldtour.com
Ivo Karlovic,38, will seek his seventh Atp World Tour singles title. Photo by atpworldtour.com

Croatian Ivo Karlovic and Luxembourg’s Gilles Muller won their semifinal matches on Saturday and they will face off in the Atp Newport final. 

In the first semifinal, Gilles Muller easily eliminated American Donald Young 6-3 6-4, playing incredibly well on his serve, putting the 71% of first serves into play and losing just five points in ten service games. Young was instead often attacked by Muller on his serve, and struggled to hold during the whole match, getting broken once in each set.

“I think it was overall a very good performance today. I finally found the rhythm on my serve and served really good the whole match,” Muller said. “I also returned pretty good and played very aggressively when I had to.”

The Luxembourg’s player will look for his first Atp World Tour title on Sunday, as he will play his fifth singles final, his second on grass, after ‘s-Hertogenbosch 2016 (lost to Mahut), and his fourth in the USA, after Washington ’04 (lost to Hewitt), Los Angeles ’05 (lost to Agassi) and Atlanta ’12 (lost to Roddick) .

This time, his opponent will be the Croatian giant Ivo Karlovic, who battled past Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis 7-6(3) 7-6(6). It was a good performance by Karlovic, who had lost to Baghdatis in the three previous meetings (excepting a win for retirement), but managed to hit 17 aces and win the 79% of service points, without facing a break point. After taking the first set, the Croat could not convert any of his seven break points in the second set, but he was able to make a decisive mini-break on six all in the tie-break. Karlovic will play his third straight final in Newport.

“It’s really nice that I am here again [in the final],” Karlovic said. “Tomorrow won’t be easy… He has a similar game to me so it will be decided in a few points, and it will be extremely difficult for both of us. But hopefully God will be on my side and I will be able to do it this year.”

Once again, Newport will host a singles final between serve and volley players, after last year’s one between American Rajeev Ram and Karlovic. Also this time,each break, if there will be any, will be decisive. During his run to the final, Karlovic was broken just once, by Dancevic, while Muller was broken four times, twice by Estrella and twice by Mannarino. Karlovic and Muller faced off three times in their career, and the Croatian won twice, but the Luxembourg’s won their last meetings, which took place in ‘s-Hertogenbosch last month.

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