By Erik Gudris | Saturday, February 15, 2014

 

Top seed and defending champion Kei Nishikori goes for his second title in a row in Memphis. Waiting for him in the final is big serving Ivo Karlovic.

Photo Credit: AP

Top seed Kei Nishikori will seek his second title in a row at the U.S National Indoor Tennis Championships in Memphis.

Despite admitting earlier in the week that his game was not 100%, Nishikori picked up his level today against Michael Russell in Saturday's semifinals.

Japan's No. 1 needed to do so after Russell got off to an early lead in the opening set. After breaking his opponent's serve, Russell finished off a delicate backhand volley to surge ahead 3-1.

But that would be the last hurrah of sorts for the American as Nishikori mounted his comeback. Nishikori would break Russell at love to level the set at 3-all and then break Russell's serve again a few games later. With that, Nishikori served out the first set 6-3. Nishikori kept up the attack in the second set again by claiming an early break and then breaking Russell again at love to go up 5-2.

From there, Nishikori closed out the 6-3, 6-2 win in just over an hour.

Waiting for him in Sunday's final will be Ivo Karlovic of Croatia who took on Yen-Hsun Lu in the second semifinal.

The big serving Karlovic lived up to his trademark game by serving up seven aces and losing only one point on serve due to a double fault. After just 29 minutes, Karlovic wrapped up the set 6-1. Lu then abruptly retired due to injury allowing Karlovic to advance into the final.

Karlovic leads the overall head to head versus Nishikori 2-0.