Seventh seed Roberto Bautista Agut beat former world number 4 Tomas Berdych 6-4 3-6 6-3 at the Qatar Open in Doha. The Spanish player completed a dream week in which he beat 2018 Roland Garros semifinalist Marco Cecchinato in the quarter final and world number 1 Novak Djokovic in the semifinal.
Bautista Agut has become the fourth Spanish player to win in Doha following in the footsteps of Rafael Nadal in 2014 and David Ferrer in 2015.
The Spaniard went up a break in the seventh game of the opening set to take a 4-3 lead and earned three break points in the ninth game, but Berdych saved them to hold his serve after two deuces. Bautista Agut served out for the first set with a hold of serve at 15 in the 10th game.
Berdych converted his second break point chance to take a 3-1 lead in the second set and held his next service games to claim the second set 6-3.
Bautista Agut saved a break point in the opening game before breaking serve in the fourth game of the decisive set to open up a 4-1 lead. He earned three consecutive double break points in the sixth game, but Berdych saved them to hold his serve at deuce. Berdych held two break points to get back on serve in the seventh game, but he missed a forehand shot on his second opportunity. Bautista Agut served out the match at love with a forehand winner after 1 hour and 53 minutes.
Agut beat three players, who have reached the top 5 in the ATP Ranking during their careers, including three-time Grand Slam champion Stan Wawrinka in the quarter final, Djokovic and now Berdych.
During the 2018 season Bautista Agut won his second title in Auckland beating Juan Martin Del Potro and achieved the biggest win of his career so far in Dubai ATP 500 defeating Lucas Pouille and lost one final in Gstaad against Matteo Berrettini. Last year he returned to his career-high number 13 in May 2018 but dropped to world number 28 after being forced to miss some important tournaments due to injury problems. Roberto finished 2014 with a year-end best of world number 15 and was named ATP Most Improved Player of the Year after winning two titles at s’Hertogenbosch on grass and Stuttgart on clay. He also reached his first Masters 1000 semifinal in Madrid and the fourth round at the Australian Open and at the US Open and the third round at Roland Garros and Wimbledon. In 2016 he won two titles in Auckland and Sofia and finished runner-up to Andy Murray in his first career Masters 1000 final in Shanghai. He reached the fourth round at the Australian Open, Roland Garros and Wimbledon in 2017.
“It’s been a fantastic week for me. Today it was not easy to manage all the emotions I had on court”,said Bautista Agut.
Berdych made an encouraging come-back after being sidelined since the Queen’s tournament last June due to a back injury.
“Roberto was too good, so well done for the title today, but I am happy with the week”, said Berdych.
