Monfils edges Karlovic in Citi Open final

The court temperature might have reached an absurd 141 degrees Saturday at Rock Creek Park Tennis Center, site of the 2016 Citi Open.

In the women’s quarterfinals, top-seeded Sam Stosur, the 2011 U.S. Open champion, was surprised by 173rd-ranked wild-card entry Jessica Pegula 7-6 (4), 6-3, No. 7 Yanina Wickmayer beat No. 4 Kristina Mladenovic 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, No. 6 Yulia Putintseva eliminated Risa Ozaki 6-4, 6-2, and Lauren Davis topped Camila Giorgi 6-4, 6-4.

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. He reached his first two ATP finals in Halle and Nice over the past two months.

Monfils, ranked 17th, is 2-0 versus Zverev, including a February quarter-final win at Rotterdam, as each seeks his third ATP final of the year.

In the 25 years that ATP service stats cover, Karlovic leads the tour with more than 11,000 career aces and by winning 92 percent of his service games.

Karlovic responded by holding to force a tie-break, but netted a forehand as Monfils claimed it 8-6, the veteran Croatian dropping a set for the first time in the tournament.

“I believe it’s (because of) hard work and also because I didn’t begin very young”, said Karlovic, who was 21 when he turned pro.

“Ivo is the same”, said Monfils, who has accumulated 15 breaks of serve this week. “I don’t know why but my serve stopped at that moment”.

“The crowd has been fantastic”, Monfils said. “I don’t know what happened”.

He noted that he was proud to join Arthur Ashe and Yannick Noah as winners in the US capital whose names are etched on the blue awnings around the main stadium.

Monfils, who will jump from 17th to 14th in the world rankings, was the week’s best at breaking serves and overcame Karlovic’s powerful ball bashing in sweltering heat and humidity. “I’m not as used up as my age would suggest”. Defintely to have my name up next to them is precious. “Always I get unbelievable support here”.

With a sliding second serve followed up by a big backhand victor, Monfils now held match points.

Monteiro completed a 6-2, 6-4 win over Simon in a match held over from Thursday, and later lost his quarterfinal match 7-6 (2), 7-5 against Robin Haase of the Netherlands.

“If it was a normal match I would have won it right there”, Karlovic said. “I mean, that’s about it”, the fifth-seeded Johnson said about the point that came with Isner ahead 5-3 in the opening tiebreaker. “I was throwing up all night, dehydrated – in these conditions I was dead out there after three games”, Zverev said. “A lot came down to a few points”.