August 18, 2019 - Ivan Dodig and Filip Polasek advance to their second ATP final together, this time at the Cincinnati Masters!
HTS reports that Croatian Davis Cup representative Ivan Dodig and Slovakian tennis player Filip Polasek have made it to the final of the Masters 1000 Series tournament in Cincinnati, where they defeated British pair Jamie Murray and Neal Skupski 6-1, 6-4 in Saturday's semi-final.
Dodig and Polasek secured the first set after they broke their opponent in the fourth and sixth games, though in the second set they had a much harder job.
Namely, Dodig and Polasek led 3:1, Murray and Skupski returned to bring the score to 4:3, though Dodig and Polasek ultimately secured the final after winning three games in a row. In total, Dodig and Polasek used four of the 13 break points, while Murray and Skupski used only one of three.
In the fight for their first ATP title in their second ATP final together (recall, the first was in Antalya, though they were also semifinalists in Wimbledon), they will play against the first-seed of the tournament, Colombian duo Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah, who beat Mate Pavić and Bruno Soares in the other semifinal round - 6:3, 6:2. Pavić and Soares did not have a single break point in the match, while there was not a single tiebreak in the match.
Dodig and Polasek will meet Cabal and Farah in the Cincinnati final on Sunday at 6:15 pm Croatia time.
The Cincinnati Masters was far from successful for Croatia's singles tennis players. Marin Čilić, Borna Ćorić, Ivo Karlovicć, and Petra Martić all lost in the first round, while Donna Vekić lost in the round of 16 fight to American star Venus Williams.
Borna Ćorić has already announced he will not participate in the next competition, the 250 series tournament in Winston-Salem.
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