TENNIS WORLD

Montanes Captures Maiden ATP Title

Fifth-seeded Spaniard Albert Montanes (pictured) dethroned defending champion Steve Darcis 1-6, 7-5, 6-3 to capture his maiden ATP singles title at the Dutch Open Tennis in Amersfoort on Sunday.
Montanes becomes the seventh first-time ATP winner this season, matching the achievements of Kei Nishikori (Delray Beach), Sergiy Stakhovsky (Zagreb), Sam Querrey (Las Vegas), Marcel Granollers (Houston), Victor Hanescu (Gstaad) and Juan Martin del Potro (Stuttgart). At the age of 27, he is also the oldest first-time champion.
The Barcelona resident is the sixth different Spaniard to win a singles title this season, joining Nicolas Almagro, David Ferrer, Marcel Granollers, Rafael Nadal and Tommy Robredo. This is the 13th overall title for Spain, equalling last year's mark.
The right-hander reached his first final at 2001 Bucharest (l. to El Aynaoui) and has since finished runner-up at 2004 Valencia (l. to Verdasco), 2005 Acapulco (l. to Nadal) and 2007 Casablanca (l. to Mathieu).
After surrendering the first set 6-1, Montanes raced to an early lead in the second set. He was briefly pegged back by Darcis but hit back to break the Belgian No. 3 seed in the 12th game to level the match at one-set-all. One break of serve in the third set was enough for Montanes to secure the victory after 1 hr., 47 min.
Montanes is the first Spanish champion at Amersfoort since Alex Corretja triumphed in 2001. He defeated Kristof Vliegen, Pablo Cuevas, No. 2 seed Jose Acasuso and Oscar Hernandez en route to the final. His best previous result was a semifinal exit on his debut in 2003 (l. to Sluiter) but he had fallen first round on his past three visits. His tournament lifetime record now stands at 8-4.
World No. 63 Montanes did not win back-to-back matches on the ATP circuit this season until April. Since then he has featured in the quarterfinals at Barcelona (l. to Wawrinka), Masters Series Hamburg (l. to Djokovic) and Stuttgart (l. to Gasquet). He has now secured his 20th match win, standing at 20-16 (17-10 on clay) for the season, and looks set to break his career-best record of 24 season match wins set last year.
World No. 56 Darcis was looking to defend his maiden ATP singles title that he captured last year in Amersfoort, knocking out World No. 13 Mikhail Youzhny in the semifinals before defeating Werner Eschauer in the final. He was looking to become the first player to defend the Amersfoort title since Balazs Taroczy won five successive titles from 1978-82 and now slips to an 8-2 tournament record.
The 24-year-old Saive resident drops to 2-1 in ATP singles finals. He captured his second title at Memphis (d. Soderling) earlier this season. The right-hander, who has only won back-to-back matches on the ATP circuit twice this season, slips to a 15-15 match record.