Newport, United States: Australian third seed Lleyton Hewitt advanced to his third consecutive final at the ATP Hall of Fame Championships by routing US seventh seed Jack Sock 6-1, 6-2 Saturday.

Former world number one Hewitt, who lost to John Isner in the 2012 final and to Frenchman Nicolas Mahut in last year’s title match, will try for a third time charmed crown Sunday against Croatian second seed Ivo Karlovic at the $474,000 (Dh1.7 million) grass-court tournament.

Karlovic, 35, beat Australian Samuel Groth 6-4, 6-4 in the other semi-final.

Hewitt, 33, seeks his 30th career ATP title and his second of the season after a Brisbane crown in the first week of the year.

Hewitt, ranked 43rd, was 7-0 in career grass-court finals before falling the past two years at Newport.

Sock struggled from the start in his first ATP singles semi-final, which only lasted an hour. The 21-year-old American, who never forced a break point, was coming off a run to the Wimbledon men’s doubles crown last week alongside Vasek Pospisil.

Karlovic reached his third final of the year, having lost to Japan’s Kei Nishikori at Memphis in February and German Philipp Kohlschreiber in May at Dusseldorf.

Karlovic, who fired nine aces to oust first-time ATP semi-finalist Groth after 65 minutes, has not won an ATP title since claiming the fifth of his career last July in Colombia, which ended a win drought of more than five years. He would jump from 31st to 28th in the ATP rankings by winning the title.

Karlovic is 4-1 in career meetings with Hewitt, most notably eliminating the Aussie defending champion in the first round at Wimbledon in 2003. Hewitt turned the tables by beating Karlovic in the first round of the 2009 French Open.

Three-time Grand Slam champion and former world number one Lindsay Davenport was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame on Saturday, saying she fell in love with the sport the first time she picked up a racket.

“I was five years old when I first hit a tennis ball and a racket was put in my hand,” the American said at her enshrinement along with legendary tennis coach Nick Bollettieri, five time Paralympic medallist Chantal Vandierendonck, tennis executive Jane Brown Grimes and British broadcaster John Barrett in ceremonies at Newport, Rhode Island.

“It was the third sport that my parents tried with me to get me out of the house clearly at a young age after school. I never wanted to learn another sport and I still don’t.