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Kevin Anderson of South Africa in action during the final match against Novak Djokovic of Serbia at the Mubadala World Tennis Championship 2018 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 29 December 2018. EPA-EFE/ALI HAIDER

 

 

Anderson, Bautista Agut secure first ATP titles of the 2019 season

 

By Ricky Dimon

 

Kevin Anderson and Roberto Bautista Agut captured the first ATP titles of the 2019 campaign on Saturday. Anderson outlasted Ivo Karlovic in three tiebreakers at the Tata Open, while Bautista Agut capped off an amazing week at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open by beating Tomas Berdych also in three sets.

 

In the tallest-ever ATP final, Anderson recovered from a 5-2 deficit in the final-set tiebreaker to scrape past Karlovic 7-6(4), 6-7(2), 7-6(5).

 

“I really wanted to go one step further than last year,” said the sixth-ranked South African, who finished runner-up to Gilles Simon in Pune 12 months ago. “You don’t get to win tournaments every week, so when you do it is very special and it is something that definitely means a lot to me…. With him at 5-2 in the third-set (tiebreaker), anything could have happened. I’m very happy I played five very good points to finish today’s match.”

 

“I was in that position (up 5-2 in the ‘breaker) because of my game-style, so in that moment I didn’t want to change anything. It didn’t work out how I wanted it to, but that is life…. It was difficult last year, I was down, but I was able to rise a little bit and I am here now; so all is good. It was an excellent week. I hope to continue at this level.”

 

Bautista Agut’s run on Doha featured an upset of world No. 1 Novak Djokovic in the semifinals. Maintaining momentum one day later, the seventh seed held off Berdych 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.

 

“It was a great start to the season,” Bautista Agut assured. “I wish to feel good physically, mentally, like I am now, like I felt this week. And if this happens, I think I can get better in the rankings; and why not be closer to the top 10?”

 

He will climb only one spot from 24th to No. 23 despite the 250-point success.

 

“It’s always a very tough draw, very tough tournament, with a lot of good players in the draw,” the Spaniard added. “And when I started the week, I was feeling good with the ball. I was enjoying practicing. I was playing match by match. And since the first moment of the tournament until the last point, I felt really good on the court.”

 

“It was overall a very good match and I think the biggest difference was one game in the third set where I lost badly my serve where I hit two double faults in one game,” Berdych said. “In such a tight match, [that] just made the big difference and that’s why I think Roberto won today, because he was playing well overall and he had a great week.”

 

Ricky contributes to 10sballs.com and also maintains his own tennis website, The Grandstand. You can follow him on twitter at @TennGrand.