30 October 2011
Moya ends El Aynaoui's fairy-tale run to clinch the 2011 Chengdu Open,
No.1 ranking
Sampras topples 2009 Chengdu Open Champion Enqvist to claim third place
Spaniard Carlos Moya and Moroccan Younes El Aynaoui faced off in the finals of the 2011 Chengdu Open, with Moya clinching the title 6-2, 7-6(6), and the No. 1 ranking on the ATP Champions Tour.
El Aynaoui, the dark horse contender who had defeated Pete Sampras, Marat Safin and Wayne Ferreira en route to the finals, saw his Chengdu dreams dashed by the indefatigable Moya. El Aynaoui was noticeably nervous, his jitters only magnified when Moya broke him in the first game.
"Sometimes in tennis if you want to do too well, if you want to play too good, then the opposite [happens]," said El Aynaoui after the match. "I was tight, I was nervous. I was not the favorite in the first two matches --- no one expected me to win, so I was playing relaxed. Today, I knew I had a chance. It was the last match, so I said to myself, 'C'mon you have to play well,' --- and then the opposite [happened]."
"It was a few points here and there," Moya said. "He just played one bad game --- the first game of the match. So it's easier when you're up a break to play your game, to play more relaxed."
The day before Moya had predicted that the final would come down to a few points, and that "whoever wins these key points will win the match."
He was right.
El Aynaoui had five break points to level the match at 2-3 in the first, but couldn't convert. Once winning his seven-deuce service game, Moya hit the accelerator. "He had five break point chances --- if he had taken one of them, it's 3-all and the match starts again," Moya said. "He didn't convert any of them, it was 4-2, and then the next game I played much more relaxed and I could break him --- and the first set was over."
Both players had opportunities to break in the second set, but neither could convert, sending the match to a tiebreaker. After saving a match point with an ace at 5-6, El Aynaoui was dismayed at 6-all as the second of two Moya lobs kissed the corner of the baseline and Moya was able to put away the point with a breathtaking lunging backhand volley. Moya then closed out the match with a service winner out wide.
"At 6-all, with the two lobs that I did --- that one on the line --- I was lucky. That ball goes one centimeter behind the line, it's out, 7-6 him, and who knows what happens the next point. It's just a matter of taking the important points --- and most of them went on my side. It was a great match, a great event for me, and I really enjoyed playing here."
Moya, who came into the Chengdu Open trailing Mark Philippoussis by 100 points in the South African Airways rankings, now pulls ahead of him in the South African Airways rankings by 220 points. After falling to Philippoussis in the Bogota finals, Moya went on to win the titles in Sao Paulo, Knokke-Heist and now Chengdu.
"I was very happy to be playing in this country for the first time in such a magnificent stadium," said El Aynaoui. "Today I tried to give my best, but Carlos was too good. I tried to push it to a third set, but he's one of the best players on the senior tour."
For the second day in a row, Sampras beat up on his younger opponent, defeating the 37-year old Enqvist 6-4, 6-4 in just 52 minutes. "It was nice to play against Thomas again," Sampras said. "He was a great competitor back in the day, I thought he was physically a little bit hurt [this week] with the knee --- it took a lot of class that he came out to play this week."
Enqvist deftly sidestepped any suggestion that his heavily wrapped knee might have hindered his play, calling it only "a little sore" and joking that the tape is a good trick to get sympathy. "I was happy to get to play Pete," he said. "It's always an honor to play him and to be able to do it again like this, you really want to take that opportunity."
"This tournament takes care of us really really well. We get treated really really nice and we enjoy our stay here," said Enqvist, who has played in the Chengdu Open every year since it began in 2009.
"It's a well run event," Sampras agreed. "Nice organization, the hotel is fantastic. I came back this year, so obviously it was something that was important to me --- to come back to a place that I enjoyed."
In a new addition to the 2011 Chengdu Open, Safin and Srichaphan defeated Ferreira, an Olympic doubles silver medalist, and his partner Philippoussis 6-3 in a fun-filled one-set doubles match. With great rallies and big smiles, the doubles match that delighted fans on the final day of play at the Chengdu Open is sure to become a new tradition.
The 2011 Chengdu Open capped another golden October of tennis in China, crowning a new champion and a new ATP Champions Tour No.1 in Carlos Moya.