Preparation for The Championships doesn’t come much better than nine grass court matches and two tour-level finals, and Feliciano Lopez admits his confidence his sky high after reaching the Aegon Championships final for a second time.
After coming within a tie-break of a third grass court title in Stuttgart last week, the Spaniard beat one former champion to face another for a shot at the Queen’s Club title on Sunday, avenging his 2014 final defeat by Grigor Dimitrov to set up a showdown with 2012 champion Marin Cilic.
“Right now it's all about confidence in tennis,” said Lopez, a 7-5, 3-6, 6-2 winner over the No.6 seed. “It's not 100 per cent, but nearly 80 or 90 per cent is on the mental part. I think that's why yesterday I saved a match point the way I saved it, because when you are in a good mood and you're winning matches, everything goes to your side.
“Today I lost the second set, but I still believed that if I keep playing as I was playing the whole week, I will have a chance to win the match. This is what happened in the end.”
The rain returned to west London on Saturday, prompting the suspension of both semi-finals mid-match, the windy and overcast conditions a far cry from the sweltering start to the week – all fine preparation for the come-what-may conditions at the All England Club in little more than a week’s time.
Like Cilic and Gilles Muller, who met in the day’s first semi-final, Lopez had reached the final four without dropping serve, and like both the Luxembourger and Croatian, the run came to an end at a critical moment. The 35-year-old was a set to the good when the rain forced the players off court for 30 minutes, only for No.6 seed Dimitrov hit back on their return, ending Lopez’s run of consecutive holds for the week at 49 before sending the match into a decider.
Lopez had seen this script play out before – in the 2014 final, Dimitrov had hit back from a set down to claim the title. But it was the Spaniard who found another gear in the third behind his penetrating sliced backhand. Dimitrov survived six break points at 1-2 but not the seventh two games later, and was broken again as the Spaniard claimed victory in their third meeting at the Aegon Championships.
“You can imagine how important it is for me to be in the finals of Queen's at this stage of my career,” said Lopez, now in his 21st season on the ATP World Tour. “It is one of the tournaments that, first of all, you love. I was dreaming to play here – when I was younger I was watching Queen's all the time, and it's one of those tournaments that you always want to play. For me, it's so special to be in the finals.”
Earlier in the day, Marin Cilic booked his place in a third Aegon Championships final with a 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 victory over ’s-Hertogenbosch champion Muller, the Luxembourger’s first defeat in eight matches on grass ahead of The Championships.
“It's just amazing to get to the final,” said Cilic, who claimed the title at Queen’s in 2012 before losing the 2013 final to Andy Murray. “Today's match was extremely high-level – I was playing really, really good throughout all the match, Gilles was just pushing me to the limits.”
The numbers bear out Cilic’s assessment. The 28-year-old’s first serve has been all but untouchable at Queen’s – he has dropped just 10 points behind the delivery through nine sets en route to the final – but Muller, who outgunned Cilic 22 aces to 20, found a way through when it mattered most, breaking to claim the second set before saving three break points at the start of the third.
It was not enough, however, with Cilic converting his 13th break point of the match to secure the vital lead before serving out victory in two hours, 16 minutes.
“This week I was feeling really good on my serve, and especially on the shots afterwards I was playing really well,” Cilic said. “Against Gilles I was mixing it up really good and just playing really well, really smart in some critical points. It's just paying off nicely.”
Cilic has the chance to make a little history on Sunday as just the second man to win both the singles and doubles titles at Queen’s, after Pete Sampras in 1995. The Croatian has partnered Poland’s Marcin Matkowski and will return to finish their semi-final showdown with No.3 seeds Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares after the singles final, with French duo Julien Benneteau and Edouard Roger-Vasselin awaiting them in the title match.
Quote of the Day
“A title is a title. They still say 17 titles, they don’t say 16 and a half.”
Marin Cilic’s previous Aegon Championships triumph means just as much to him as his other titles, despite the bizarre circumstances behind his victory. The Croatian was handed victory when David Nalbandian was defaulted for injuring a line judge by kicking a wooden advertising banner into his leg.
