http://www.atptennis.com/
Mar 3, 2002
Santoro Overcomes Illness

==Frenchman Fabrice Santoro overcame severe illness to win the fourth ATP
title of his career with a 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 victory over Morocco's Younes El
Aynaoui in the final of the Dubai Tennis Championships.==

Just hours before the final, Santoro had to go to a nearby hospital
after a flu virus had kept him up during the night.

"This is the most amazing match I have played in my career," said
Santoro after the 2-hour, 18-minute final. "I was very weak before
the final and thought I would have to withdraw. It was only half an
hour before the start that I decided to try. I had a shower and felt
better and told myself that I would stop after 10 minutes."

Santoro said he knew something was wrong after getting back to his
hotel room following his three-set victory over Jiri Novak in the
semifinal and was vomiting throughout the night. 戦 slept badly from
nine in the morning until one and at 1:30 I decided to go to the
hospital because I was feeling so bad," said the 29-year-old Santoro.
" human being has amazing powers. Sometimes you feel like you are going
to die and you still have resources."

Reserves

Santoro broke El Aynaoui旧 serve in the seventh game of the match and
then saved six break points before taking the set 6-4. After the
Moroccan took the second set, Santoro was forced to draw on all his
reserves. The Frenchman, who appeared in the final in Dubai nine years
ago but lost to Karol Novacek, broke again to lead 5-3 after being 40-0
down, and despite facing two break points in the final game, came through
to collect his first title since Doha in 2000.

En route to the championship, Santoro defeated Michael Kohlmann, fourth
seed and fellow countryman Sebastien Grosjean, Ivan Ljubicic and Novak,
while El Aynaoui reached his second final of the year (Doha) with
victories over Andrei Pavel, top seed Juan Carlos Ferrero, Rainer
Schuettler and Australian Open champion Thomas Johansson.

"It旧 his day, no doubt," said El Aynaoui. "He played smart and he has
[a true] sense of the game. More so, he was calm. He was coming in to the
net and I was too much in a hurry and as a result I put the lobs out. He
was playing well on the volley. Everything went wrong for me."