The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Sugiyama clinches Masters title

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jul 03, 2004

Sport

Sport - Tennis

Sugiyama clinches Masters title

By Kamesh Srinivasan

NEW DELHI, JULY 2. Norikazu Sugiyama of Japan capped a fine run as he won the Masters title with a 1-6, 6-3, 6-4 win over Aqeel Khan of Pakistan in the ITF Satellite tennis circuit at the DLTA Complex here on Friday.

The 26-year-old Sugiyama had won the Satellite by entering the final itself, and was playing for only an additional ATP point. Yet, Sugiyama played brilliantly and stroked well after an indifferent start to scotch the hopes of the fifth-seeded Aqeel Khan.

An injudicious approach to the net at 15-30 in the ninth game of the decider and a broken gut when he was trying to save the second breakpoint, came in the way of the 24-year-old Aqeel's aspirations to clinch the title.

The top-seeded Sugiyama, who won the title in the third leg last week, was quite erratic in the first set, but he allowed the opponent to make the mistakes as the match meandered into the second set.

Though Aqeel played a mature game overall, he erred and lost grip over the proceedings as he tried to dictate terms.

Sugiyama wound up with 43 ATP points, including eight bonus points for winning the circuit. Aqeel had to be content with 29 ATP points including four bonus for finishing second.

Incidentally, Joshua Goodall of Britain also tied for the second slot with 46 circuit points, and hence he also collected 29 ATP points including the four bonus.

The winner collected $800, while the runner-up got $600.

More than losing the $200 after a brilliant start when he looked all set to sweep the Japanese off his feet, Aqeel lost a chance to add as many as six ATP points and deny four ATP points for Goodall.

But Aqeel had reason to be happy as he managed to eke out so many ATP points, a big reward for someone who does not have an ATP ranking. Except for losing to Sunil Kumar in the semifinals of the third leg, Aqeel had lost only to the eventual champions in earlier tournaments.

Sugiyama, who had only lost to Goodall in the quarterfinals of first leg and to Vinod Sridhar in the semifinals of the second, was equally pleased to bag a rich haul of ATP points, which when added to his 50 ATP points would push him from 474 into the top 350.

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