Australia’s Nick Kyrgios, widely fancied to be the next superstar of world tennis, on Sunday demonstrated just why as he claimed his first ATP title in the Open 13 by beating Croatian Marin Cilic 6-2, 7-6 (7/3).
The promising 20-year-old with the brash attitude, big game and outlandish talent hammered down 17 aces to earn the scalp of former US Open champion Cilic in the final.
It concluded a dramatic breakthrough week for Kyrgios, who had previously garnered almost as many headlines for his on-court misbehavior as his obvious rare ability.
Photo: AP
The man from Canberra, Australia, also beat two top-10 ranked players, Richard Gasquet and Tomas Berdych, plus the 12th-ranked Cilic, and did not lose a set in the tournament, his serve being unbroken in 47 games.
Kyrgios, whose ranking of 41 is to shoot up, was playing in his second ATP final after finishing runner-up in Estoril last year, but his maiden victory seems sure to be the first of many.
He is the first player younger than 21 to down top-10 players in consecutive matches since Juan Martin del Potro beat Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer to lift the 2009 US Open crown.
“I played my first final last year and was looking for my first title, but I didn’t really expect to win this title this week after having a couple of weeks off, but from the first round I started playing really well and just gained confidence as I kept winning matches,” a delighted Kyrgios told the ATP Web site.
Kyrgios had to withdraw from a tournament in Rotterdam the previous week with an elbow injury, but showed no signs of discomfort as he put Cilic under pressure from the start.
He converted his eighth break point for a 3-1 lead in the opening set, before capturing a second break in the seventh game and then serving out to love to take the set.
Cilic had a chance to force a decider with a set point in the 10th game, but Kyrgios held firm and served out the match with an ace in the tiebreak after 85 minutes.
Kyrgios’s elation in his second tournament of the season was a far cry from some of last year’s negative headlines.
In August last year, the Australian received a suspended 28-day ban and a US$25,000 fine for a vulgar comment he made toward Stanislas Wawrinka at the Rogers Cup in Montreal.
Two months later, Kyrgios was fined for a verbal outburst during his first-round match at the Shanghai Masters.
He began the year in eyebrow-raising fashion by answering his telephone on court before a mixed doubles game at the Australian Open.
DELRAY BEACH OPEN
AP, DELRAY BEACH, Florida
Sam Querrey on Sunday beat Rajeev Ram 6-4, 7-6 (8/6) in an all-US final in the Delray Beach Open for his eighth ATP World Tour title and first since 2012.
Querrey rebounded from a break down in each set and 0-3, 2-5 and 5-6 in the tiebreaker before closing out Ram with a running forehand down-the-line pass that clipped the baseline. Ram challenged the call, but the replay showed it caught the outside of the line.
Querrey, who was down a break in six of the 10 sets he won throughout the week, knocked out former US Open champ Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina in the semi-finals.
“It was kind of nervous, ugly tennis all week, but sometimes it feels better to win when you don’t play your best,” said Querrey, who also reached the semi-finals in Memphis the previous week.
Querrey earned US$86,950. He is also to move back into the world’s top 45 from a current No. 61.
The 28-year-old Californian was ranked as high of No. 17 in January 2011.
This was only the second time in the 24-year history of the tournament that two unseeded players met in the final. The last time was 2013.
“People don’t give him credit for how well he moves,” said Ram, who has played Querrey seven times dating to a Challenger event in California in 2005 — losing to him four times in a row. “He makes you feel like you have to play a better shot.”
Ram broke serve in the first game of both sets and also led 40-15 while serving at 4-5 in the first. However, the 31-year-old Carmel, Indiana, resident lost four straight points and gave away the set with a stab forehand long off Querrey’s inside-out forehand return that landed on the sideline.
Ram, who had won just two matches in four tournaments coming into Delray Beach, upset second-seeded Bernard Tomic in the first round and fourth-seeded Grigor Dimitrov in the semi-finals.
Austria’s Oliver Marach and France’s Fabrice Martin denied Bob and Mike Bryan their fifth Delray Beach doubles title by upsetting the top seeds 3-6, 7-6 (9/7), 13-11. The Bryans held a match point in the second-set tiebreaker and five more in the super tiebreaker before Martin hit a winning overhead on his second match point.
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