Ninth seed Tomas Berdych powered past Argentina’s Juan Martin Del Potro in straight sets yesterday to win the Japan Open, his first ATP title of the season.
The 23-year-old Czech, who shocked US second seed Andy Roddick and third seed Fernando Gonzalez of Chile on his way to the final, coasted to a surprisingly one-sided 6-1, 6-4 victory over the fifth seed.
“In this condition and at this level of tennis, I think the most important thing is to ... just be 100 percent on the court — then the results can come,” Berdych said.
“I think it happened to me this week and I’m very happy for that. I’m really happy to win here, especially here in Tokyo, I hope I will be here next year,” he said.
Berdych, ranked 27th in the world, said his goal was to finish this year in or near the top 10.
“Since summer, I lost a lot of points and dropped in the rankings, so I’m now trying to get back. I have three more tournaments, three really big tournaments in Europe,” Berdych said.
“So I’m looking forward to going out there. My goal is to get back to as close as possible to the top 10, and next year I have a lot of chances to bring my ranking up,” he said.
It was Berdych’s first title since winning at Halle in June last year, and his fourth overall, after victories at Palermo in 2004 and Paris in 2005.
Berdych had beaten Del Potro in a Challenger event in 2006, but had never played him at a full-fledged ATP Tour event.
Meanwhile Caroline Wozniacki continued to enjoy her best season by beating Kaia Kanepi of Estonia to win the women’s singles title yesterday.
The 18-year-old Danish top seed, a semi-finalist last year, completed a 6-2, 3-6, 6-1 victory over the fifth seed in two hours.
“I feel amazing. I just won another tournament. It’s been an incredible year. This is my first title here in Japan and I’m very happy,” said a jubilant Wozniacki, ranked 16th against Kanepi’s 33rd.
“I think I improved a lot last year and I think I improved pretty much everything,” she said.
Wozniacki said she was now battling for every point and had got into the winning mood.
Kanepi, 23, struggled with her first serves and found herself 0-4 down in the first set.
It was too late to come back but she then started to serve better and went a service break up in the seventh game to take the second set and tie the contest at one-all.
But her serve once again betrayed her in the third. Kanepi, who hit six aces and eight double faults in the match, managed two and two in the second game of the decider to go down 0-2 and was unable to come back.
Wozniacki, much more consistent than the error-prone Kanepi, chalked up a 5-0 lead and on her first match point two games later watched her opponent hit a forehand into the net.
■ PORSCHE OPEN
AFP, STUTTGART, GERMANY
Jelena Jankovic needed two pain-killing injections and nearly three hours to beat Venus Williams as Saturday’s semi-final of Stuttgart’s WTA event turned into a battle royal. Jankovic was due to play Russia’s Nadia Petrova in yesterday’s final after her impressive 6-7 (8/10), 7-5, 6-2 semi-final win over sixth seed Williams.
The Serb needed injections to numb the pain from a toe-nail she split in Friday’s quarter-final win over Vera Zvonareva. But she brushed off the discomfort and recovered from losing the first set to dominate her American opponent.
“That was a tough game, it’s always hard to play Venus,” Jankovic said. “I had to run a lot — I was not sure I would play today, because I had to have two injections.”
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