Novak Djokovic whacked the tournament's final shot for a winner, then collapsed on his back, sprawled at the baseline.
Djokovic rose to embrace his opponent and climbed into the stands to hug his parents. He returned to the court and threw his shirt and racket to the cheering crowd.
The kid plays with flair and celebrates the same way.
PHOTO: AFP
Djokovic managed to succeed where Roger Federer failed, beating qualifier Guillermo Canas 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 to win the Sony Ericsson Open on Sunday.
Canas upset top-ranked Federer twice last month, including in the fourth round here.
But the 29-year-old Argentine's relentless baseline game failed to faze the 19-year-old Djokovic, who dominated with his versatile shotmaking and held every every time he served.
"I hope this is only the start," said Djokovic, who was runner-up at Indian Wells, California two weeks ago. "I was always trying to compare myself to the best players in the world, because that's what I want to be."
"Right now I feel like probably for the first time in my career I'm on that level, that I deserve to be one of the three best players in the world," he said.
Ranked 10th for the Sony tournament, Djokovic improved to a career-high No. 7 in the new list yesterday.
With his first ATP Masters Series title, the slender Serb became the youngest men's champion in the tournament's 23-year history.
Djokovic won every set he played -- the first time the Key Biscayne men's champion has done that since Ivan Lendl in 1989.
"Tennis has a new star today," tournament chairman Butch Buchholz said.
"He's going to be around," he said.
Djokovic has already put Serbia back on the tennis map.
The nation touts a modest tennis tradition aside from Monica Seles, a nine-time Grand Slam champion who was in the crowd on Sunday.
"I'm very happy about that because she was one of my idols when I was young," Djokovic said.
The crowd roared when Djokovic skipped a forehand winner off the baseline on match point, and his exuberant celebration kept the cheers coming.
Once he was shirtless, he waved his racket around in several directions before throwing it to a delighted young woman in the front row.
"It was a very emotional moment for me," Djokovic said. "I was thinking even to put away my shoes and shorts and everything. But I said, OK, television is here, so I'll keep that."
Canas applauded the young champion.
"He's a great player," Canas said. "If he continues like this, he's going to be one of the top three or four players very, very soon."
Canas can take consolation in the resurgence of his career.
"I'm very happy now, but hopefully more happy moments are going to come for me," Canas said. "Now everybody knows I'm back on the tour."
"He has been through a tough period," Djokovic said. "He came back. Well done. He is a great player."
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier