TENNIS ATP UMAG – Pablo Cuevas claimed two back-to-back ATP titles following his first title Bastad two weeks ago with another win in the Umag Croatia Open final against defending champion Tommy Robredo with the scoreline of 6-3 6-4. Earlier on the same day he beat last year’s finalist Fognini with the same score in the semifinal which was postponed until Sunday morning because of heavy rain. Diego Sampaolo
Cuevas, who did not feature in the ATP Ranking at the beginning of 2013 after undergoing knee surgery in 2012, has moved up 20 spots to reach the 40th place (a career high) in the ATP Ranking at the start of this week. Cuevas, who started the Umag ATP 250 Ranking as a qualifier, has extended his streak to 13 match wins.
Cuevas converted on three of his nine break chances and hit 26 winners. He got the break in the sixth game to take a 4-2 lead in the first set. The South American player got a double break to go up 4-1 in the second set. World Number 18 Robredo, who played in his 20th career final and won the Umag title beating Fabio Fognini in 2013, broke back to love in the sixth game but Cuevas managed to wrap up the set with 6-3 to claim his second consecutive title.
Robredo beat 2012 Umag champion Marin Cilic 7-6(10) 6-3 in the other Sunday morning semifinal.
Cuevas has become the second qualifier to win a ATP Trophy in 2014 after Martin Klizan in Munich
Robredo lost the title won last year but he confirmed his reputation as a clay specialist having won 11 of his 12 tournaments on clay. He won 245 matches on this surface. The Spanish player is currently third behind Rafa Nadal and David Ferrer in the ranking of players with more wins on clay. However he played well on hard-court as in 2013 when he beat Roger Federer at the US Open
The Umag tournament revealed 17-year-old Croatian rising star Borna Coric who forced Fabio Fognini to the third set in the quarter final. The Italian finally clinched a hard-fought win in three sets with 5-7 7-6 6-4.
Coric, World Number 230, beat Number 46 Edouard Roger Vasselin in the first round and Horacio Zeballos in the second round. Coric, who is coached by 2001 Wimbledon champion Goran Ivanisevic, won the 2013 Junior Tournament at the US Open where he beat Australian Open rising star Thanasi Kokkinakis.
Coric is the latest name to add to the list of young players who could emerge on the world stage in the future following Australian Nick Kyrgios who beat Rafa Nadal to reach the Wimbledon quarter final, the other Australian of Greek origin Thanasi Kokkinakis and German 17-year-old Alexander Zverev.
Kokkinakis finished runner-up in two Junior Grand Slam finals at the Australian Open and the US Open in 2013.
Zverev, who was born in 1997, won the Australian Open Junior Tournament last January and was the World Junior Number 1 player. Later this year he won his first ATP Challenger in Braunschweig beating Paul Henry Mathieu. At this month’s ATP 500 Tournament in his native city Hamburg the younger brother of tennis player Misha Zverev beat Robin Haase, Michail Youzhny, Santiago Giraldo and Tobias Kamke before losing in the semifinal against David Ferrer
