History In Houston: Karlovic Into The Semis

Ivo Karlovic said he was happy after his opening-round win for various reasons, including earning his first victory as a 39-year-old. Three days later, he has done a lot more than that.

The Croatian beat fourth seed Nick Kyrgios 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 Friday at the Fayez Sarofim & Co. U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championship to become the oldest player to advance to an ATP World Tour semi-final since Jimmy Connors at 1993 San Francisco. The right-hander was already the oldest quarter-finalist at Houston in the Open Era.

“It’s definitely a huge win. I lost against him every match up until now,” said Karlovic, the 2007 Houston titlist. “I’m really happy that I won today.”

Kyrgios had previously owned a 4-0 FedEx ATP Head2Head series lead against Karlovic, but the World No. 88 hit 18 aces and was not broken after his first service game in the match. The eight-time ATP World Tour champion last reached a final last year in ‘s-Hertogenbosch (l. to Muller). 

Karlovic will look to change that when he plays American Tennys Sandgren, the No. 8 seed, who came from a break down in the third set to oust Argentine Guido Pella 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 in two hours, 19 minutes to reach his first ATP World Tour semi-final. A year ago this week, Sandgren qualified for his first Tour main draw at the River Oaks Country Club.

“I was proud of myself for just sticking it out and keeping myself around and doing everything I could to keep the scoreline close,” Sandgren said. “It seemed like, from my end of the court at least, that he was doing a lot better job of handling the conditions on the clay than I was… I was really frustrated and thinking that obviously, it’s not looking good from here.”

Pella served for the match at 6-4, 5-4, but the World No. 56 broke twice in a row — his first two breaks of serve in the match — to force a decider. And from there, he broke twice more to earn his third victory of the week — Sandgren owned two tour-level wins in his career prior to this season. 

“I was watching his match a little bit today,” Karlovic said of Sandgren. “He has a really good baseline [game] and he’s a strong guy, so it will be a really difficult match.”

Did You Know?
Karlovic, who became the oldest ATP World Tour semi-finalist since Jimmy Connors at 1993 San Francisco, can become the oldest finalist since Ken Rosewall, 43, won the 1977 Hong Kong title.