Croatia’s Ivo Karlovic became the oldest ATP winner since Jimmy Connors in 1989 when he captured the Delray Beach Open final on Sunday.
The 35-year-old used his prodigious serve to break US opponent Donald Young three times for a 6-3, 6-3 victory on the Florida hard court.
Karlovic, who turns 36 on Saturday, is the oldest winner since Connors won in Tel Aviv at the age of 37, according to the ATP.
It is Karlovic’s sixth career title and it keeps the event in Croatian hands following last year’s victory by Marin Cilic, who later in the season won the US Open.
“It is really satisfying. At my age to do this is an unbelievable feeling and this gives me a boost of confidence to go into other events,” Karlovic told reporters after beating Young in 69 minutes.
Karlovic does not know how long he can continue at such a high level, but says he is as fit as when he was in his late 20s.
“I am healthy,” he said. “I feel fast, strong. I don’t know how many more years I can do this, but for now I am feeling good. In all the tests I am like eight years ago.”
The 2.11m Croat used his height to pound 91 aces for the tournament and remain unbroken in 56 service games, though he came closest to dropping serve when he was down 0-40 in the eighth game of the first set against Young.
“I was able to get out of it. I was also a little bit lucky,” he said. “After that game I knew it would be easier, because that game I did a lot of double faults and I was able to get out of it.”
Young, who remains without an ATP title after two final appearances, said it was difficult to read where Karlovic was going to place his serve.
“He kind of tosses in the same spot and can hit all the spots on the court,” Young said.
“He played well. He beat me. I didn’t play the best I wanted to play, but all credit to him,” he said.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier