Novak Djokovic won the Serbia Open without dropping a set after beating Spain’s Feliciano Lopez 7-6 (7/4), 6-2 in Sunday’s final to stretch his unbeaten record this year to 27 matches.
It was the 23-year-old Serb’s fifth title this year after he captured the Australian Open and the Dubai Championships, as well as the Masters series events in Indian Wells and Miami.
After enjoying an easy passage to the final, including a first-round bye and a semi-final walkover against injured compatriot Janko Tipsarevic, Djokovic showed resilience when he faced adversity in the opening set against Lopez.
The home crowd favorite looked uncomfortable in light drizzle and high humidity, but showed nerves of steel, saving all seven break points throughout the strength-sapping contest.
With the score 5-5 in the first set, Djokovic saved a break point with a backhand return from an almost impossible angle and then romped to a 5-1 lead in the tiebreak, before he wrapped up the set in 73 minutes.
Having served his way out of the trouble to lead 2-1 in the second set, Djokovic broke serve for the first time in the fourth game and saved another break point in the sixth, before Lopez handed him a 5-2 lead with two wild unforced errors.
Djokovic then drew a standing ovation from the 5,000 home crowd with a pair of superb sliced drop-shots and sealed his second Serbia Open title with an ace and a service winner.
ESTORIL OPEN
AFP, ESTORIL, Portugal
Argentina’s Juan Martin del Potro won his first clay-court tournament in 22 months with a 6-2, 6-2 defeat of Fernando Verdasco at the Estoril Open on Sunday.
The victory was the second of the season for the 2009 US Open champion, who missed 10 months of last year as he recovered from surgery on his right wrist.
Del Potro last played on clay at the 2009 French Open, but he showed that he had lost none of his touch on the surface.
He claimed his ninth title, from 12 final appearances, to improve his win-loss record for the season to 25-6 and become the first Argentine to win the Estoril title since David Nalbandian in 2006.
Despite his loss, the week was also a success for Spain’s second-seeded Verdasco, who had lost in four of his five previous tournaments in opening matches.
The Spaniard is fighting to rescue his ranking after he dropped from the top 10 to 15th. Sunday’s loss left his record in finals at 5-10.
Del Potro dominated in the opening set, winning it in 32 minutes after running away to a 5-1 start, but Verdasco began to find his range in the second set and despite starting it by going down a break, he managed to keep del Potro at bay.
The Argentine was tested in the final game, with Verdasco saving a pair of match points and forcing his opponent to salvage a break point, but del Potro finally took victory on his third chance.
BMW OPEN
AP, MUNICH, Germany
Nikolay Davydenko beat Florian Mayer of Germany 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 to win his second BMW Open title on Sunday.
The seventh-seeded Russian also won the Munich tournament in 2004.
Davydenko broke serve for a decisive 2-0 lead in the final set and breezed through for his 21st title.
The fifth-seeded Mayer was looking for his first title. He also lost to Davydenko in the 2006 final in Sopot, Poland. Davydenko, a former third-ranked player, leads their head-to-head record 3-2.
Mayer, the highest-ranked German, is expected to move to No. 30 in the rankings.
Davydenko had to save a pair of break points to serve out the first set. Mayer won the second set thanks to an early break, but he could not come back after falling behind in the third, allowing Davydenko to capture his first title of the year.
MADRID MASTERS
AFP, MADRID
Top seed Caroline Wozniacki began her campaign at the Madrid Masters on Sunday with a 6-2, 6-3 defeat of Japan’s Ayumi Morita, while two Grand Slam champions, Maria Sharapova and Francesca Schiavone, also went through.
While Wozniacki was doing all the right things, there was disaster for French title holder Aravane Rezai, who lost to Swedish qualifier Sofia Arvidsson 6-3, 3-6, 6-4.
French Open champion Francesca Schiavone won her first clay-court match of the season, defeating China’s Peng Shuai 7-5, 7-6 (7/2) to reach the second round.
The Italian third seed was beaten on clay last month in Stuttgart by Poland’s Agnieszka Radwanska, but with her Roland Garros title defense starting on May 22, Schiavone got her game back on track in straight sets.
Schiavone spent two hours on court at the Caja Magica complex, facing only two break points from her 30th-ranked Chinese opponent, who lost a semi-final on green clay in Charleston early last month.
Eighth-seeded Maria Sharapova struggled in her first clay-court contest of the season, with the Russian three-time Grand Slam champion coming through for a defeat of Alexandra Rus of the Netherlands 2-6, 6-3, 6-2.
The challenger saved a match point on her own serve, before the Russian seed moved ahead into the second round on her second winning opportunity.
Sharapova finished with a disappointing 37 unforced errors and just 14 winners on the high-altitude clay of the capital. The Russian converted on seven of 14 break points against a teenage opponent ranked 99th, who lost in the first round in Marbella and in Fez.
French 11th seed Marion Bartoli saw off Romanian qualifier Simona Halep 6-4, 6-1, while Slovakia’s Daniela Hantuchova advanced over Japan’s 40-year-old Kimiko Date-Krumm 6-3, 6-3.
The only two men’s seeds on court on Sunday both exited with Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga beating 10th-seeded Nicolas Almagro 6-1, 6-3 and Spain’s Guillermo Garcia-Lopez defeating 14th-seeded Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland 6-4, 5-7, 6-4.
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