At Queen's Club, Djokovic reaches first ATP final since last July

Novak Djokovic edged Jeremy Chardy on Saturday afternoon to reach the 99th final of his career - and first in almost a year - at the Fever-Tree Championships. He’ll play Marin Cilic for the title.

Djokovic had never lost a match (10-0) or even a set (24-0) to Chardy going into their semifinal match, and he improved that to 11-0 and 26-0 with a 7-6 (5) 6-4 victory in an hour and 32 minutes.

Chardy came into the match having held all 30 of his service games this week, and he extended that to 40 before Djokovic finally broke him for 5-4 in the second set—he then served out the match.

The Serb is now through to his first final since winning Eastbourne the week before Wimbledon last year. It’ll be his second final at Queen’s Club—he was a runner-up to Rafael Nadal back in 2008.

This will also be his 99th career ATP World Tour final (he’s 68-30 in his first 98 career finals).

WATCH—Match point from Djokovic's win over Chardy at Queen's Club:

Playing Djokovic for the title will be the No. 1-seeded Cilic, who survived Nick Kyrgios, 7-6 (3) 7-6 (4).

Kyrgios had made an electric run to the semifinals - not only did he outlast newly-returned former World No. 1 Andy Murray in a thriller in the first round, he put on an absolute serving display in his next two matches against No. 7 seed Kyle Edmund and defending champion Feliciano Lopez, dropping 32 aces in both matches (which made him the first man since Ivan Ljubicic at Lyon in 2007 to hit 30 or more aces in back-to-back best-of-three-set matches on the ATP World Tour).

The Australian hit 16 aces in this one too but Cilic was just too solid, not facing a single break point in his 12 service games and winning both tie-breaks comfortably to win in an hour and 26 minutes.

“As expected, the match was decided by a couple points in both tie-breaks,” Cilic said. “I was the one who got a couple of good returns and a couple of good shots, and that’s all that made the difference.

“Obviously on grass, playing Nick is extremely difficult.”

Cilic will play the Queen’s Club final for the fourth time in his career now, having captured the title in 2012 and finishing runner-up in 2013 (to Murray) and 2017 (to Lopez). He’s 17-14 in career finals.

Djokovic has completely dominated his head-to-head with Cilic, leading 14-1. However, Cilic’s only win did come in their last meeting - a 6-4 7-6 (2) victory in the quarterfinals of the Masters 1000 in Paris in 2016 (when Djokovic was No. 1). Djokovic has won both of their grass court meetings.

A LANDMARK DOCUMENTARY DURING THE MOST PRESTIGIOUS EVENT IN SPORTS, CELEBRATING THE UNPARALLELED FEDERER-NADAL RIVALRY AND 10TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE GREATEST MATCH EVER PLAYED.

In association with All England Lawn & Tennis Club, Rock Paper Scissors Entertainment and Amblin Television.  Directed by Andrew Douglas.