It was third time a charm for Steve Johnson in the Houston semi-finlas as the Californian finally got the better of his American compatriot Jack Sock 4-6, 6-4, 6-3. Johnson defeated Sock for the first time in three meetings this year to set up a final with clay specialist Thomaz Bellucci in Texas.
With the season only in April it was already the third meeting between two of the top four Americans this season. Sock won both their previous matches in the Auckland semi-finals, and in the Delray Beach quarter-finals but came undone as Johnson narrowed the head-to-head to 2-5.
Sock has enjoyed some good previous years in Houston, picking up his first career title at the event in 2015, before making the final last year. He started well as Johnson failed to get his serve into a good groove, hitting an uncharacteristic five double-faults and handing the set to Sock with the lone break of serve.
Sock kept a trend going of winning the first set before losing the second going, as Johnson dropped just two points on his first serve in the second set and winning 64% against Sock’s second serve. Tommy Haas and Feliciano Lopez had also both taken sets from Jack Sock in the second round and quarter-finals respectively.
Johnson managed to arrest one trend though, winning the decider by breaking to deuce in game eight. He survived a tough deuce hold of his own to seal the match and moved into his first ATP final since his title run at Nottingham last year.
Johnson is 1-1 in career ATP finals. He lost to David Ferrer in a tight three-setter in Vienna in 2015, before defeating Pablo Cuevas on the grass in Nottingham in the week before Wimbledon.
Johnson’s opponent Thomaz Bellucci managed to win a match where his position at one stage looked improbable. His opponent, twenty year -old American Wildcard Ernesto Escobedo, played an impressive first set, not offering a single break point. However, the tide turned on a Bellucci break in the second set, and the Brazilian then blew past the young American, wrapping up the decider for the loss of two games, 5-7, 6-4, 6-2.
The two have met just once before on the hard courts of Melbourne at the Australian Open in 2016. That resulted in a comprehensive 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 win for Johnson, but Bellucci is likely to be a much tougher assignment on clay.
