MARSEILLE: Nick Kyrgios won his first ATP World Tour title on Sunday as he upset fourth seed Marin Cilic 6-2, 7-6 (7/3) in the final of the Marseille Open.
The 20-year-old Australian reached the final by defeating two top 10 players in Tomas Berdych and Richard Gasquet and he proved too good for 2014 US Open champion Cilic.
Kyrgios did not lose a set all week and did not drop serve in any of his matches.
He is the first player under the age of 21 to beat top 10 opponents in consecutive matches since Juan Martin del Potro at the 2009 US Open.
The win will also boost his world ranking which was at 41st at the start of the week.
Nadal beaten again
Rafael Nadal has vowed he will put in more hard work in a bid to get his game back to the level where he can win more tournaments.
The 29-year-old Spaniard endured another frustrating defeat late Saturday when he lost a marathon semifinal in the ATP Rio de Janeiro Open to 45th-ranked Pablo Cuevas 6-7 (6/8), 7-6 (7/3), 6-4.
It was just the second time since 2005 that Nadal has lost to a player ranked outside the world top 30 on clay
That loss came just a week after he lost in the semifinal of the Argentina Open in three sets to Austria’s Dominic Thiem, also on clay.
Nadal had traveled to South America following his first round loss at the Australian Open in a bid to reverse, on his favorite claycourt surface, the form loss that has seen his world ranking slump.
Ram ousts Dimitrov
American Rajeev Ram upset fourth-seeded Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria 6-4, 6-3 on Saturday in the Delray Beach Open semifinals.
American Sam Querrey beat Argentina’s Juan Martin del Potro 7-5, 7-5 in the second semifinal.
The 31-year-old Ram won his only other career finals he has played, in Newport in 2009 and last year. He beat Querrey in ‘09 to claim his first tour-level title.
After admitting to a bout of nerves during his three-set quarterfinal win over Benjamin Becker, the 31-year-old Ram played what he called “two of the best sets of tennis I’ve ever played.”
The match was disrupted briefly in the second set when chair umpire Simon Cannavan spotted a drone flying high over the court. During the US Open last year, a drone crashed into the stands during a match between Flavia Pennetta and Monica Niculescu.
