Ernests Gulbis and Federico Delbonis will battle for the Nice title on Saturday. Taking the court for the championship match in Dusseldorf, meanwhile, are Philipp Kohlschreiber and Ivo Karlovic.
(7) Federico Delbonis vs. (2) Ernests Gulbis
Gulbis will be looking to maintain a perfect record in ATP finals when he takes the court on Saturday at the Open de Nice Cote d’Azur. The 19th-ranked Latvian is 5-0 at this stage of tournament, having triumphed most recently on the indoor hard courts of Marseille earlier this season. Gulbis is through to his sixth title match following wins over Martin Klizan, Dmitry Tursunov, and Albert Montanes. After three-set victories in his first two matches of the week, Nice’s No. 2 seed blasted Montanes 6-0, 6-3 in one hour and 10 minutes on Friday. An in-form and unusually consistent Gulbis is now 26-10 for his 2014 campaign.
Up next for Gulbis is Delbonis, whom he has never faced. The 45th-ranked Argentine booked a spot in his third career ATP final by taking out Mikhail Kukushkin, Paul-Henri Mathieu, John Isner (in a third-set tiebreaker), and Gilles Simon. Delbonis finished runner-up last year in Hamburg and lifted the winner’s trophy earlier this year in Sao Paulo. Clay will obviously help the seventh seed, but Gulbis has more experience in this situation and he generally feasts on opponents who spin in their serves without much velocity.
Pick: Gulbis in 3
(1) Philipp Kohlschreiber vs. (7) Ivo Karlovic
Kohlschreiber and Karlovic will be squaring off for the fourth time in their careers and for the first time in more than three years when they collide in the final of the Dusseldorf Open. Karlovic leads the head-to-head series 2-1, but they have never met on clay (all three of their previous encounters have come on hard courts). They most recently collided at the 2001 Doha event, with Karlovic prevailing 7-6(5), 6-7(4), 7-6(2). The last four sets between the two players have ended in tiebreakers and six of their eight total sets have required a ‘breaker.
Karlovic, who is 5-4 in ATP title matches, has enjoyed a stellar week that includes a three-set victory over Juan Monaco and a third-set tiebreaker survival at the expense of Tobias Kamke. Kohlschreiber, 4-6 in finals, has defeated Teymuraz Gabashvili, Mate Delic, and Denis Istomin. The top-seeded German played five sets on Friday, the last two against Delic after a darkness suspension and three versus Istomin. The good news for Kohlschreiber is that matches against Karlovic do not require as much energy as most other matchups. Playing at home in Germany and on clay, the world No. 29–who has been broken by Karlovic only once in 45 service games–may have a slight edge.
Pick: Kohlschreiber in 3
