Kucera wins first title since 1999 by defeating Olivier Rochus on Sunday..
Slovakia's Karol Kucera won his sixth career ATP title on Sunday by winning
the Copenhagen Open. Kucera defeated Olivier Rochus 7-6(4), 6-4 in 1 hour,
40 minutes to claim his first title since winning Basel in 1999.
Kucera, who will celebrate his 29th birthday on Tuesday, gave himself an
early gift by becoming the first Slovak winner in Copenhagen. Prior to
this year, Kucera had reached the semifinals in his two previous
appearances in Copenhagen ('95 and '97). He reached his first ATP
final of the year in January before losing to Paradorn Srichaphan in
the Chennai final.
En route to the title, Kucera defeated Kristof Vliegen, Marc Rosset,
Michel Kratochvil and No. 2 seed Wayne Arthurs before ousting Rochus
in the final.
Rochus was playing in his second consecutive final in Copenhagen, losing
last year to Lars Burgsmuller. The Belgian had the early advantage in the
final being up 3-1 and 5-4 and serving for the first set before dropping
his serve and later forcing a tie-break. The 22-year-old Belgian defeated
top-seed Jarkko Nieminen, defending champion Burgsmuller, Tomas Behrend and
fourth-seed Radek Stepanek to reach the final.
In doubles, third time was the charm for the team of Tomas Cibulec and Pavel
Vizner, who won their first ATP doubles title together in their third final
of the year. The duo defeated Julian Knowle and Michael Kohlmann, 7-5, 5-7,
6-2 in the final. The top-seeded Czech team had previously played in the
Milan and Marseille finals, losing both times. Vizner claimed his fourth
career doubles title and snapped a losing streak of 13 consecutive finals.
His three previous titles all came in 1996. Cibulec won his
second career title after being victorious in San Marino in 2000.
WHAT THE PLAYERS SAID:
Kucera: "It was a very tough final. I was very nervous and Olivier was
playing well. It's been a fantastic week for me being here for the third
time. The atmosphere was great."
"I was very nervous today. I really wanted to win and that put a lot of
pressure on me before the match. It's been a long time since I won a
tournament, almost three years."
"I made a lot of easy errors in the beginning, which gave him a good start.
He is a really tough opponent, who is running and fighting a lot. I think
the first set was the key to win the match. I had a little bit of luck
winning it. In the second set I didn't make too many mistakes and I also
created some opportunities to break him."
"I would like to dedicate this win to my wife and my little daughter who
are at home cheering for me."
"My goal is to enjoy tennis. The last two, three years have been really
tough for me. I had a lot of injuries and it was tough to start over and
be focused again. Now I've been healthy for almost nine months."
Rochus: "When you lose two finals in a row you're disappointed. A title
is something special."
"I played better than yesterday but Karol was playing very well. I had a
lot of chances in the first set being 3-1 and 5-4 up serving for the set.
Had I won the first set it would maybe have been different. But then he
was serving better and better and he didn't give me any free points."
Cibulec: "I feel very happy. I teamed up with Pavel four weeks ago and we
reached the final in Milan and Marseille. Today we finally won a final.
I'm really enjoying playing with Pavel."
"The match was very close, they returned very well. We were a little
lucky in the first set. It felt fine at 4-1 in the third set, we just
concentrated on holding serve."
Vizner: "It feels great. We had a good week playing good tennis. We were
a little lucky to get a walkover in the semifinal. Today we returned well,
which is the most important."
About playing with Cibulec: "He plays well and brings calmness to our game.
Today he stayed calm at every stage of the match."
About winning a title again: "After seven or eight finals I asked myself '
What am I doing here on court?' But I knew it would come one day."
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恭喜"酷斯拉"=大貓拿下睽違近四年的冠軍…哇…老將又一個回春了
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