Eastbourne International: Novak Djokovic beats Gael Monfils to win title, boosts Wimbledon hopes

Eastbourne: Novak Djokovic clinched his first title since January with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Gael Monfils in Saturday’s Eastbourne final, while Karolina Pliskova lifted the women’s trophy after defeating Caroline Wozniacki. Djokovic, playing the week before Wimbledon for the first time since 2010, captured his 68th career title — but just the second this year — after downing Monfils for the 14th time in as many meetings. “It’s been a great decision to come here,” Djokovic, whose form has dramatically tailed off since completing the career Grand Slam at last year’s French Open, told Eurosport. [caption id=“attachment_3766183” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Novak Djokovic celebrates with the Eastbourne International trophy after winning the final against Gael Monfils. Reuters[/caption] “Coming to Eastbourne I obviously haven’t had as much success as in previous seasons during the first six months.” The World No 4 will face Slovakia’s Martin Klizan in the first round at Wimbledon where he is a three-time former champion. The Serb, who will have former players Andre Agassi and Mario Ancic on his Wimbledon coaching team, spent only an hour and a quarter in taming the French second seed. Djokovic has now won 19 consecutive matches against French players and 56 of 57 dating back to the 2010 Davis Cup final. He didn’t drop serve, while breaking Monfils three times en route to his first grass-court title outside of Wimbledon. Earlier, third seed Pliskova beat Danish sixth seed Wozniacki 6-4, 6-4 to underline her status as a Wimbledon title contender. The Czech secured her third title of the season after breaking Wozniacki once in both sets, leaving the Dane still searching for a first trophy since her win in Hong Kong last October. “I just wanted to play some matches and to see how it goes and to have some hits on grass, especially when I came from Czech (Republic), I didn’t practise much on grass,” Pliskova said. “That’s what happened, and it came out that I got the title. I didn’t really expect this start of the grass-court season, but it gave me a lot of confidence coming to London.” Pliskova needed 80 minutes to win the trophy and become the first top-10 player to win the event since former Wimbledon champion Marion Bartoli in 2011. The World No 3 was clinical in going one better than when she lost to Dominika Cibulkova in last year’s final, becoming the first Czech to win the Eastbourne title since Jana Novotna in 1998. The 25-year-old fired ten aces in an impressive serving display, as Wozniacki was unsuccessful on four break-point chances. Pliskova will go into Wimbledon as one of the favourites for the title, having also reached the French Open semi-finals at Roland Garros last month.