http://www.atptennis.com/
Oct. 27, 2002
Grosjean Wins St. Petersburg

==Frenchman now prepares for Paris defence==

Sebastien Grosjean won his first ATP title of 2002 when he defeated
Mikhail Youzhny 7-5, 6-4 in the St. Petersburg Open final. Grosjean
had last won a tournament at the BNP Paribas Masters last year in
Paris, where he defends the title next week.

St. Petersburg was the Frenchman's first final since losing to Lleyton
Hewitt in the championship match at the Tennis Masters Cup Sydney in
November 2001. He continues French domination at Russian ATP events
after Paul-Henri Mathieu won in Moscow three weeks ago.

Youzhny had advanced to the second ATP final of his career after
winning the Mercedes Cup in Stuttgart in July 2001. He was attempting
to become the third Russian winner in St. Petersburg after Yevgeny
Kafelnikov (1995) and Marat Safin (2000-01).

What the players said:

Grosjean:

"I'm really happy to win my first title of the year, especially the
way I played this week. It was not easy today as Mikhail is a good
player who wanted to win in front of his crowd.

"After I won the first set, he had a chance to break me at the
beginning of the second but he did not take it. Maybe he was a little
bit nervous as he badly wanted to win. I just played the same way from
the beginning to the end. I played a solid match like all week here."

"I now go to Paris for the (BNP Paribas) Masters with a lot of
confidence. It's very important to go into such a big event with a few
wins under your belt. I had a good week in Madrid and I won my first
title here. In Paris I will play on Wednesday, so I have a couple of
days to rest."

"I came here alone so I don't know how to celebrate; Maybe another room
service. My wife and kids are in France to see the family, they went to
EuroDisney to celebrate my daughter's birthday. Maybe they'll come to
St. Petersburg next year."

Youzhny:

"I made a few mistakes but I thought I played okay. The key was when
I dropped my serve at 5-6 to lose the first set. I think only a couple
of points decided the match."

"I do hope I will have more chances to play better here in the future
as I love to play in Russia. We have only two events, Moscow and
St. Petersburg. It's great to play at home with the crowd support.

"(Sebastien) played good tennis today, no mistakes. Every time he was
0-30 or 15-30 on his serve he came up with a few big serves.

"I now go back home to Moscow. I will not play tennis for 10 days but
will do some gym and swimming and start preparing the Davis Cup final
against France."

David Adams and Jared Palmer defeated Irakli Labadze and Marat Safin
7-6(8), 6-3 to win their second and third doubles titles of the season
respectively.

Palmer said:

"We've played together for three or four weeks and have had a lot of
fun. I've always enjoyed played in Russia; I seem to have good results
here. Obviously it was a very close, very even first set and we could've
easily lost it."

Adams said: "We played a good tie-break and we got the crucial momentum.
I would love to continue to play with Jared but we teamed up only because
his partner, Don Johnson, has an injury."