(Stuttgart) Frances Tiafoe defeated Jan-Lennard Struff 4-6, 7-6(1), 7-6(8) in Stuttgart on Sunday to claim a first title on grass.
Tiafoe saved a match point in the deciding tiebreaker.
He who was 12th, he will reach the 10th rank of the ATP, a personal peak.
With Taylor Fritz eighth, the United States has two men in the top 10 for the first time since May 2012, when Mardy Fish and John Isner were ninth and 10th, the ATP said.
Tiafoe failed to convert his first match point at 6-5: he sent the ball into the net after the longest rally of the game.
Struff then had his own match point at 7-6, which Tiafoe saved with a backhand.
A missed return cost Tiafoe another match point, before a thrilling ending: a spike that Struff managed to return, before Tiafoe won with an instinctive volley.
“I was very lucky on the last point,” Tiafoe said. I still don’t know how I got the ball over the net, but I’ll take it. »
Tiafoe triumphed even without signing a break against Struff, author of 28 aces.
