Blake breezes to win
ByReuters
Published 01/10/2006 at 09:16 GMT
James Blake of the United States powered past a below-par Ivan Ljubicic 6-3 6-1 in less than an hour to win the $550,000 Thailand Open on Sunday. Blake stunned the Croatian by opening up a 5-0 lead in the first set, as Ljubicic failed to capitalise on his
TENNIS 2006 ATP Bangkok Blake
Image credit: dpa
The American broke his opponent at the start of the second set before Ljubicic's game completely fell apart - the Croatian finding the net almost as often as the court.
Blake used his pace and powerful backhand drives to put the match beyond Ljubicic and take his fourth title of the year.
"I felt like I was returning great because his serve was off from the start, and it stayed off," Blake told a news conference.
"When he's winning, it's because of his serve and I took advantage of that and heaped pressure on him the whole match.
"It was a combination of me playing well and him having a bad match," added Blake, who sealed victory in 58 minutes for his third straight sets win of the tournament.
Ljubicic, who was the top seed, said he was unhappy with his performance having played well in the earlier rounds against high calibre opposition.
He said Blake had nothing to lose and won by cutting him out of the match at the start.
"It's disappointing because I wanted to fight for the title and I was never in it from the very first point," Ljubicic told reporters.
"He played good, he was returning my serves perfectly. My shots were going out when all his were landing in.
"When he plays like this I had to take more risks."
In the doubles final, Israel's Andy Ram and Jonathan Ulrich beat British brothers Andy and Jamie Murray 6-2 2-6 10-4.
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