Double crown for Malisse

This erratic but hugely talented player seems to have finally come of age. The Belgian, who had made it a habit of sorts to lose focus immediately...

This erratic but hugely talented player seems to have finally come of age. The Belgian, who had made it a habit of sorts to lose focus immediately after taking out a higher-ranked opponent, says he’s finally matured as player.

“Some players mature quickly. But, I’m glad I’m finally getting to my potential. In the past I’ve beaten top-20 players, and then taken it easy. So that way I’ve matured. I have a good coach (David Felgate) now and I’ve been training very hard in the off-season. The combination of both things is working for me,” said the World No 37 who created history at the ATP event here becoming the only player to win both singles and doubles titles in the same year.

Malisse will leave Chennai a very rich and satisfied man after the dream start to the new season. The third seed collected the second ATP singles title of his career and $ 65,850 as prize money with a comfortable 6-1, 6-3 victory over Austrian Stefan Koubek. The Belgian later walked on the Centre Court with countryman Dick Norman to lift the doubles crown and pocketed a cool cheque of $20,250 after edging past the Spaniard duo of Rafael Nadal and Bartolome Salva-Vidal in two tie-breaks.

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If the singles final didn’t provide good match practice for Malisse, the doubles final was a closely-fought contest. And, it was precisely the reason — to get match practice ahead of the long season — that the Belgians decided to team up here.

“We just got together last week. We are only playing here for match practice. It’s important to have as many matches as you can under your belt,” explained Malisse before the doubles final. This was then a ‘lucky double’ for him.

The crowd was in full-force at the SDAT Stadium but unfortunately, the singles final turned out to be a drab, lop-sided affair. Koubek looked a pale shadow of the man who had taken out fourth seed Julien Benneteau, fifth seed Carlos Moya and seventh seed Paradorn Srichaphan on way to the final. Today, the Austrian looked clueless about what was happening on the court, shrugging his shoulders every now and then.

“I tried to play my tennis, which I had been playing all week but Xavier played unbelievable tennis,” said Koubek after the match.

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The 30-year-old World No 80 failed to hold his serve throughout the first set, but managed to lessen the embarrassment by breaking Malisse in the fourth game. If the Austrian did everything right last evening against Carlos Moya, he was totally out of sorts today. His shots sailed long and wide and one such backhand error gave the Belgian the first set in 25 minutes.

In the second set, Koubek managed to keep pace before a double-fault gave Malisse a break point in the fourth game. The Belgian moved up 3-1 courtesy a backhand error from his opponent. The match went on serve thereafter and the lone chance that Malisse allowed the Austrian was only in the last game of the match. By then Malisse already had the keys to the Mercedes perched on the courtside. After failing to capitalise on his first match point, Malisse clinched his season’s first title when Koubek netted a forehand.

“Stefan didn’t play good tennis. He lost momentum. I served well on important points. I’m happy that I played good tennis,” said the winner. Koubek on his part said: “He didn’t give me any chance in the match until the last game, which unfortunately I couldn’t take. I tried to play aggressive, but he just had the better answers.”