Lleyton Hewitt will be contesting his third consecutive Newport final when he takes the court on Sunday against Ivo Karlovic. This is the sixth career encounter between two veterans whose combined age is 68 years old.
Eleven years after their first and most memorable meeting, Ivo Karlovic and Lleyton Hewitt will be squaring off for the title of the U.S. Hall of Fame Tennis Championships on Sunday afternoon.
Karlovic stunned Hewitt, who was Wimbledon’s defending champion at the time, 1-6, 7-6(5), 6-3, 6-4 during first-round action at the All-England Club in 2003. The 35-year-old Croat now leads the head-to-head series 4-1, including 3-0 on grass. He beat Hewitt at Queen’s Club in 2005 and 2012 to go along with a 7-6(5), 7-6(6) victory at the 2007 Tokyo event. Hewitt’s lone win came when he outlasted Karlovic 6-7(1), 6-7(4), 7-6(4), 6-4, 6-3 at the French Open four years ago.
Both men are still going relatively strong in what is seemingly the twilight of their careers and Karlovic has been especially successful in 2014. The world No. 31 owns 23 ATP-level match victories this season, including four in straight this week over Robby Ginepri, Sergiy Stakhovsky, Dudi Sela, and Samuel Groth. Karlovic also finished runner-up in Memphis and Dusseldorf and he reached the third round at Roland Garros, where he upset Grigor Dimitrov in the process.
Hewitt has not been as consistent this year, but he does have a title to his credit having triumphed in Brisbane during the first week of the season. The 33-year-old Australian is 16-12 for his 2014 campaign following Newport scalps of Ryan Harrison, Ante Pavic, Steve Johnson, and Jack Sock. Hewitt has won eight consecutive sets and has not even been pushed to a tiebreaker since dropping his opening set of the tournament 6-1 to Harrison.
Hewitt’s history against Karlovic is somewhat surprising because the two-time Grand Slam champion has generally owned big servers throughout his career; Karlovic is the one nut Hewitt really has not figured out how to crack. While none of Hewitt’s four previous opponents this week can compare to Karlovic, they were all aggressive players with big serves. That kind of recent match practice will only help Hewitt, who seems due for a win over Karlovic and a win in Newport–where he has finished runner-up twice in a row. Unless Karlovic puts in an awesome percentage of first deliveries, Hewitt’s return should help him get enough balls back in play to outlast the No. 2 seed in what will be an intriguing contrast in styles.
Pick: Hewitt in 3
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