Frenchman Kyrian Jacquet ensured that it was a memorable maiden visit to the SDAT tennis stadium for the nine-year-old Indo-French Tamara, as he beat Swede Elias Ymer 7-6(1), 6-4 in the final to clinch the Chennai Open ATP Challenger title here on Sunday.
Besides a bit of support from his compatriots, he earned 22730 USD and 100 ranking points.
Perhaps, buoyed by the cheers in French, especially from Tamara’s mother, Jacquet put up an inspired performance driven by his strengths – slicing often to break his opponent’s rhythm and rushing the net for the winners.
For instance, he hit three successive backhand slices in a 17-stroke rally when he was 4-3 up in the first set. And he produced the most spectacular stroke of the match from the net: a mid-air between-the-legs volley hit from behind his back.
It helped Jacquet that his opponent was alarmingly error-prone. Jacquet won the first set tie-break 7-1, courtesy of Ymer’s six unforced errors. The champion remarkably played a forehand cross-court pass to Ymer’s drop from the net for his first point. Ymer won his sole point when Jacquet double-faulted.
From there, Ymer made at least thirteen unforced errors, including a double fault, until he was down 1-4 in the second set. He caught up and made it 4-4 before making three unforced errors again to help his opponent hold serve without losing a point. He saved a match point in the next game but double-faulted immediately after for Jacquet to break serve and win the match.
“I would like to dedicate this title to my grandfather, who passed away in December,” said Jacquet after the match.
The result (singles, final)
Kyrian Jacquet (Fra) bt Elias Ymer (Swe) 7-6(1), 6-4.
Content Source: sportstar.thehindu.com