Roddick and Clijsters reign in Miami
After falling just one victory short of claiming his first ATP World Tour Masters 1000 title since 2006 at the BNP Paribas Open in March, Andy Roddick was victorious at the Sony Ericsson Open over the Easter weekend.
The sixth seed claimed the second Miami title of his career – his first was in 2004 – with a 7-5, 6-4 victory over Czech Tomas Berdych in the final.
“Obviously it's a big title for me,” Roddick said afterwards. “I felt a little bit of pressure to win this one because I had a pretty good opportunity in Indian Wells and didn't come through there”.
At Indian Wells, it was the un-seeded Ivan Ljubicic who planted himself firmly between the American and his title aspirations, but having reached the final of the year’s second Masters 1000 tournament, Roddick wasn’t about to come off second best again.
Berdych may have walked onto centre court having claimed the scalps of world No. 1 Roger Federer and top 10 players Fernando Verdasco and Robin Soderling, but Roddick retained the focus and form that he has shown throughout the beginning of 2010, where he has accumulated the best winning record of any ATP player this season.
Victory in the final brought up the 27-year-old’s 26th match victory for the year (with four losses on the other side of the ledger) and his second title of 2010, with the men’s and women’s singles results at Miami mirroring those at the Brisbane International in January.
In the Queensland capital, Kim Clijsters had held off a determined Justine Henin in the first tournament of her comeback to take the early honours in part two of the Belgians’ rivalry.
Clijsters again had to stave off her compatriot in Miami, this time in a third set semi-final tiebreak to line up a final with the tour’s most in-form player, Venus Williams, who entered the Sony Ericsson Open seeking her third consecutive WTA Tour title.
To say Williams came close to achieving that feat would be to ignore the one-sided nature of the final, where the third seed found neither touch nor range from almost first point till last.
Venus’ error-strewn performance – she sprayed 30 enforced errors– gifted the mum-of-one the title in just 58 minutes, with a 6-2, 6-1 scoreline. Take nothing away from Clijsters though, her own game remained by and large clinical against an opponent who inexplicably seemed intent on beating herself.
The title is Clijsters’ third in the second part of her career, following on from last year’s US Open and Brisbane, and brings her total number of career titles to 37, one more than Serena Williams has claimed in her illustrious career. The world No. 1 may have had more than just a family allegiance on her mind as she attempted to lift her sister with encouragement from the stands during the final.
By lifting the Butch Buchholz trophy on a sunny Miami Saturday, Clijsters also lifted her ranking back into the top 10 just eight tournaments back from retirement. Roddick also moves up one place in the rankings after winning the men’s singles title, to world No. 7.
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