Paes outsmarts Delgado for title

Paes, who admitted to being below par today as compared to the last few days, found in Delgado an opponent who played a game very similar to his own. In the first two games, both players treaded warily and held onto serve, giving away only a point each.

Then Paes began moving in early, unlike his last two matches where he stayed back and played a solid baseline game most of the time. Against Takahiro Terachi and Satoshi Iwabuchi in the semis and quarters, Paes allowed the Japanese to make mistakes. Against Delgado, he couldn’t afford to do that, he was therefore more combative.

The British fifth-seed hit some superb backhand cross-court shots whenever he could, that Paes had simply no answer to, but in the end, when it mattered like in the tie-break, he was just not able to beat Paes at the net. As Paes said later, “Both our fortes are volleys. And it went down to the wire. It eventually came down to who took the net away.”

In the second tie-break, Paes played a beautiful drop volley for his first match point. Delgado answered with an ace, but was then out-slugged and hit the tape to give Paes his third Challenger title this year. Said Paes at the end: “The days you’re not playing your best tennis, you just have to play solid. Today was huge, I didn’t play great, but I went in and played smart.”