Almagro stuns Gasquet in Gstaad
Nicolas Almagro played brilliantly in the final of Allianz Suisse Open Gstaad to defeat Richard Gasquet of France on Sunday. The world No. 18 Almagro won his second title on Sunday in the space of just 20 days. The final score was 7-5, 6-1 and it was seventh ATP tour level title for Almagro.
By winning the ATP World Tour 250 clay court tennis tournament, Almagro succeeded in getting the highest 250 South African Airways 2010 ATP ranking points and also took the prize money of 68,450 euros. On the other hand, Gasquet earned 150 ATP ranking points and took 35,980 euros in prize money.
This is the second time that Almagro has won two ATP World Tour titles in the same year. It is also a continuity of his brilliant performance at Acapulco in 2008. The Spaniard has improved from his previous performance to 7-2 mark in ATP World Tour tournament finals with each one coming on clay. Almagro is enjoying the best form of his career and has played brilliant tennis this year. Almagro is keen to make a place in the top 10 and will be focusing to achieve this goal in the upcoming hard court season.
This is the 15th achievement of a Spanish player at ATP World Tour event this year. Spaniards won the Gstaad title nine times in 11 years between 1992 and 2002, which is a remarkable achievement.
The match
Almagro served for the first set at 5-4, but could not close it out as Richard Gasquet converted his first break point of the match to level at 5-5. Almagro broke Gasquet's serve in the next game and immediately got his advantage and positively served out the set at the second time. He took the first set, which lasted for about 43 minutes with this 10th ace.
In the second set, Almagro kept his momentum by quickly getting to a lead of 2-1. Almagro didn’t show mercy on errors of Gasquet that lead Almagro in a lengthy fifth game to open up the advantage to 4-1. Almagro broke serve once more in seventh game to complete the victory in 75 minutes and won the title.
"I played my best tennis today," said Almagro. "I returned well and served amazingly. The altitude doesn't make it easier here, but it's nice to face that challenge. I realized during the first set that Richard had trouble with his serve."
Gasquet blamed some of his performance on his shoulder.
"It wasn't easy from the beginning of the week," said Gasquet. "I just started serving on the Friday before the tournament because I had problems with my shoulder. It became worse last night. Also Nicolas was playing well so it was very difficult today."
The number seven seed Gasquet was looking to regain this title that he had won in 2006. Gasquet had defeated Feliciano Lopez in 2006 final. The Frenchman was contesting his third ATP World Tour final of the season and lost for the second time in the finals.
"I tried to fight and focus well all week and thanks to that I made it to another final here," said Gasquet. "It's still a good week for me. This is a very beautiful tournament and it's always a pleasure to come here.
"Now I will try to be back in form as soon as possible and get ready for the hard-court swing in the US."
With the hard-court season coming up, it'll be players such as Gasquet trying to race against time and heal their injuries to compete at their full potential.
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