Lorenzi Beats Basilashvili In Kitzbuhel 2016 Final Highlights
Lorenzi Beats Basilashvili In Kitzbuhel 2016 Final Highlights
Jul242016
World number one Serena Williams has withdrawn from next week’s WTA Rogers Cup in Toronto because of an injury.
The two-time winner has not played since winning her seventh Wimbledon title and has pulled out with inflammation in her shoulder.
Defending champion Andy Murray, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have already pulled out of the men’s event.
The Olympics Games tennis event begins in Rio on 6 August where Williams will defend her singles and doubles titles.
Lopez becomes the sixth Spaniard to win an ATP World Tour title in 2016
Feliciano Lopez finally landed the J. Safara Sarasin Swiss Open Gstaad title on Sunday, 10 years on from a runner-up finish to Richard Gasquet. The top seed, making his 10th appearance at the ATP World Tour 250 tournament, defeated 2013 finalist Robin Haase 6-4, 7-5 in the final, which lasted 77 minutes.
Lopez captured his fifth ATP World Tour title in his 14th final. The 34-year-old Spaniard, who is currently No. 21 in the Emirates ATP Rankings, earned 250 points and €82,450 in prize money. It is his first trophy since June 2014 at Eastbourne.
Lopez broke Haase to love in the fifth game and came within a point of taking a 5-2 lead in the 33-minute opener. Haase, a winner of three of their four previous meetings, regrouped and surged into a 3-0 advantage in the second set. But Lopez worked his way back to 3-3 and at 5-5, took Haase’s serve to 30 on his third break point opportunity.
Haase, 29, is now 2-3 in ATP World Tour finals. Three years ago, he lost to Mikhail Youzhny in the Gstaad title match. The World No. 95 takes home €43,430 and 15 points.
Karlovic will play in his 16th ATP World Tour final; Monfils, his 25th
Ivo Karlovic remained perfect on his serve in Washington and will play for his first ATP World Tour 500 title on Sunday. The 37 year old blasted 14 more aces and erased all five break points to beat American Steve Johnson 6-4, 6-4 at the Rock Creek Park Tennis Center.
Karlovic now leads the tournament with 80 aces and has held all 43 service games. The 6’11” Croatian will face Frenchman Gael Monfils, who dismissed NextGen star Alexander Zverev 6-4, 6-0 in one hour. Monfils controlled the match from the start, breaking the 19 year old to open the semi-final contest, the first of four service breaks the second seed would secure.
Monfils also landed nearly 70 per cent of his first serves, compared to 44 per cent for Zverev, who is the youngest player in the Top 50 of the Emirates ATP Rankings. In the second set, Monfils dropped only three points (12/15) on his serve.
The 29-year-old will go for his first Citi Open title and his first ATP World Tour title since Montpellier in 2014. He also played for the Washington title in 2011 (l. to Stepanek). Monfils is 5-19 lifetime in ATP World Tour finals. Sunday’s match-up will mark his third final of the season (Rotterdam, Monte-Carlo).
He is 2-2 against Karlovic in their FedEx ATP Head2Head series. It will be Karlovic’s first final at the Citi Open. He reached the semi-finals in 2007 but lost to Andy Roddick. Clutch serving and opportunistic returning ensured that Karlovic wouldn’t fall to another American on Saturday.
At 1-all, he saw a break point and converted. It was the only chance to break he’d have all set long as Johnson otherwise kept up his consistent serving. Up to that game, the 26-year-old American was 33/33 on his serve.
The second set mirrored the first when, at 1-all, Karlovic sliced a backhand service return past a charging Johnson to earn another break. He’d serve out the set with his 14th ace.
Karlovic will try to win his eighth ATP World Tour title on Sunday. He’s played in 15 finals, including the Hall of Fame Tennis Championships final in Newport on 17 July (d. Muller).
On Friday, Karlovic said that winning an ATP World Tour 500 event was one of his goals for the next few years. He’ll have a chance to cross it off the list on Sunday in Washington.
Slovakian improves to 9-0 in ATP World Tour finals
Martin Klizan and David Marrero won their second Konzum Croatia Open Umag title on Saturday, needing only 59 minutes to defeat Croatians Nikola Mektic and Antonio Sancic 6-4, 6-2. The Slovakian/Spaniard duo erased two break points and pounced on the Croatians’ second serves, winning 16/21 help them earn three breaks.
It’s Klizan/Marrero’s second overall ATP World Tour team title (Umag 2013). Klizan remained perfect in ATP World Tour finals: 4-0 in doubles finals and 5-0 in singles. Marrero improved to 13-14 in finals and won a title for the second consecutive week. He and countryman Marcel Granollers won the Bastad doubles title on 17 July. Klizan/Marrero will receive 250 Emirates ATP Doubles Rankings points and split €25,070.
Mektic/Sancic were making their ATP World Tour doubles final debut. They had been 1-5 in ATP Challenger Tour finals. They’ll receive 150 Emirates ATP Doubles Rankings points and split €13,170.
Spaniard to play Haase in Sunday final
Top seed Feliciano Lopez returned to the final of the J. Safra Sarasin Swiss Open for the first time in 10 years with a 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 victory over Dustin Brown on Saturday.
“It’s a long time since my last final here,” said Lopez. “I have great memories and it’s definitely a great feeling to be in the final here because it means I can still be competitive after 10 years.”
Lopez plays Robin Haase for the championship at this ATP World Tour 250 tournament. The Dutch player defeated 2007 champion and eighth seed Paul-Henri Mathieu in the second semi-final, 7-6(4), 7-6(2). He’s into his first ATP World Tour final since Vienna in October 2013 and now seeks his first ATP World Tour title since winning back-to-back tournaments in Kitzbuhel in 2011 and 2012.
Haase leads their FedEx ATP Head2Head series 3-1, including a 2013 semi-final win in Gstaad. “I’m very happy,” he said. “My goal is to win [tomorrow]. I’ve played him here before, I won and I hope I can take that as an advantage into tomorrow.”
The 34-year-old Spaniard needed one hour and 30 minutes to defeat Brown in their first FedEx ATP Head2Head meeting. Brown, 31, was playing in his second ATP World Tour semi-final (Montpellier 2016, l. to Gasquet), and had beaten two former Swiss Open champions in his last two matches: two-time titlist Thomaz Bellucci (second round) and 2013 champ Mikhail Youzhny (quarter-finals).
“Dustin is a difficult player to play. He plays tricky shots, serves very good and has very good hands when he comes to the net. It was a tough match for me to play, but I think overall I had a great performance,” said Lopez. “I’ve played against [Robin] many times, so it’s going to be very tough.”
Haase saved four break points in his opening service game, but he and Mathieu traded routine service holds throughout the rest of the opening set to force a tie-break. The tie-break was even at 3/3 when a rain delay forced both players off the court. When they returned, Haase raced to a 6/3 lead and converted on his third set point.
The Dutchman earned the first break of the match by breaking Mathieu to love and grabbing a 2-0 lead, but the Frenchman fought back by breaking his opponent in the next game. They each held serve all the way to the tie-break, where Haase went on a four-point run to take a 5/2 lead and closed out the semi-final on his second match point.
Fourth Seeds Book Final Berth
Julio Peralta and Horacio Zeballos, fourth seeds in Gstaad, edged the unseeded Dutch-Austrian pairing of Sander Arends and Tristan-Samuel Weissborn 6-1, 3-6, 11-9 in the semi-finals. The Chilean-Argentine duo will face top seeds Mate Pavic of Croatia and Michael Venus of New Zealand in Sunday’s final.