Andy Roddick beat Gilles Muller of Luxembourg 1-6, 7-6 (7/2), 6-2 to win the Atlanta Open and earn his 32nd ATP World Tour title on Sunday.
Roddick, 29, ranks third among active players in career titles behind Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.
“I’ve won 32 times and in every one of them I’ve never assumed I was going to win again,” he said. “I just kind of go about the process of playing, work hard and hope I can put myself in position enough times where you kind of create some success for yourself.”
Photo: AFP
After taking the Eastbourne title before Wimbledon, Roddick has won two of his past three events and 11 of 12 matches. He will play for the US team when the Olympics begin at Wimbledon on Saturday.
A sore right shoulder caused Roddick to struggle with Muller’s serve in the first set. Before the changeover, he called a medical timeout to see a trainer. He said the shoulder felt pinched, and there was a dull pain.
Roddick was concerned. A right-shoulder injury last year had forced him to withdraw before the French Open, but the trainer all but assured him there was nothing structurally wrong.
“I felt like I could hit it straight ahead OK,” he said. “I was just lacking movement and wasn’t able to snap the ball off too well. I don’t feel like I had my best serve today. It was just a little dead for whatever reason, but hopefully, with a couple of days off, it will be OK.”
Muller, 29, was denied his first tour victory in three tries. His last appearance in a final was seven years ago when Andre Agassi beat him in Los Angeles.
Despite winning all but six of his first-serve points, Muller double-faulted 10 times and lost 21 of 36 points on his second serve. The left-handed Muller had 20 aces to Roddick’s 18.
Muller acknowledged feeling nervous as Roddick took charge of the match by winning five of the first six points in the second-set tiebreaker.
“It was a long time since I’ve been in position to win a tournament like that,” Muller said. “I did very well until the middle of the second set, but then when it got closer to end of that set, I suddenly started to feel like I can win this maybe. That’s when I got maybe a little bit more tight, and Andy started to play better.”
Roddick had not won in Atlanta since 2001, when he was 18 and the event was held on clay at a different venue. This year, he has had to overcome a right-hamstring tear that he suffered in the second round of the Australian Open.
GERMAN CHAMPIONSHIP
AFP, HAMBURG, Germany
Argentine Juan Monaco defeated home hope Tommy Haas 7-5, 6-4 to claim his third title of the season in the ATP clay-court event in Hamburg on Sunday.
The 28-year-old Monaco, ranked 14th in the world and seeded third, added to his titles from Vina del Mar in Chile and Houston, Texas, on clay this year to bring his career tally to six.
Former world No. 2 Haas, 34, was playing his second final of the season, after beating Wimbledon champion Roger Federer on grass to lift the Halle title last month.
“He played some fantastic tennis, but I am happy and proud to have played another final here on home soil in front of my family,” said Haas, who has mounted a resurgence in the world rankings this year after falling outside the top 200 following hip and shoulder injuries. “That gives me motivation for the future.”
It was his fourth consecutive defeat at the hands of Monaco, who broke into the world top 10 when the latest rankings were announced yesterday.
SWISS OPEN
AP, GSTAAD, Switzerland
Unseeded Brazilian Thomaz Bellucci rallied to beat top-seeded Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia, 6-7 (6/8), 6-4, 6-2 in the Swiss Open final on Sunday.
Bellucci, ranked No. 60, got his third career title and second at Gstaad.
He won the clay-court event as a qualifier in 2009.
Tipsarevic was denied a second straight title after winning on clay last week in Stuttgart, Germany, where he beat Bellucci in the semi-finals.
The Serbian led 6-1 in the first-set tiebreaker, before Tipsarevic reeled off seven points for the set.
At 5-4 in the second, Bellucci broke the eighth-ranked Serbian’s serve to love to level the match.
Tipsarevic saved two match points, but double-faulted to present a third, which the 24-year-old Brazilian took.
Bellucci and Tipsarevic both head next to the Olympics tournament at Wimbledon.
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