Top seed Lleyton Hewitt defeated fellow Australian Mark Philippoussis 6-4, 6-4 on Sunday to win the Scottsdale Classic title for the second time.The world’s No.1 ranked player needed just 85 minutes to defeat Philippoussis, recording one service break in each set to claim his first tournament tile of the year and 18th of his career. “It’s been a wonderful week,” Hewitt said. “It was fantastic preparation for the next two events in Indian Wells and Miami.”Hewitt only entered the tournament at the last minute as a wild card entry and he hadn’T played in more than a month before arriving at Scottsdale.But his game showed little rust all week, as he sailed into the final where he had a relatively easy time improving his lifetime record against Philippoussis to 3-1.Philippoussis, a former Scottsdale champion, was hoping to end a two-year victory drought. His last win came at Memphis in 2001.“I’m starting to play good tennis again,” Philippoussis said. “Hopefully there will be a few more Sundays left.” It was the first All-Australian title match on the ATP Tour since April 16, 2000, when Andrew Ilie defeated Jason Stoltenberg in the Atlanta finals.Gambill triumphs over FishDELRAY BEACH: Jan-Michael Gambill won his second International Tennis Championship title in three years on Sunday, downing Mardy Fish 6-0, 7-6 in an all-American final.The fourth seed captured his third career title by prevailing 7-5 in a tight tiebreak after he had overwhelmed Fish in the first set.“That was by far the best match I’ve played all week, especially against someone who was playing as well as Mardy,” Gambill said.“He’s going to be in a lot more finals this year and it was great to play against another American who is playing so well.“I was just firing on all 12 cylinders. I was returning great, I was serving great.”Gambill opened the 90-minute match with an ace and ended it in similar fashion, taking advantage of Fish’s lack of ATP finals experience, especially in the first set. The unseeded Fish was making his first appearance in a final and it showed early. Gambill broke him three consecutive times on sharp returns in the first set and Fish really never recovered from that onslaught.Fish did take a 3-0 lead in the second set, but Gambill quickly recovered to make it 3-3 before the set eventually came down to the tiebreaker. “I didn’t play particularly well,” Fish said. “I guess I got caught up a little in the moment. I think I just needed to get a couple of games in there.“But looking back on the match, I don’t think I played that bad of a first set. He just had every answer to every shot. If he plays like that he’s going to beat a lot of people.” Gambill is now 3-0 lifetime against Fish, who despite the loss will move into the top-60 in the ATP rankings for the first time this week.
