Haarhuis claims first career title

Haarhuis claims first career title

JAKARTA (JP): Paul Haarhuis of the Netherlands defied a worsening wrist injury to beat Czech Radomir Vasek yesterday at the Indonesia Men's Open tennis championships. The victory was the first singles title of his career.

It was more than a relief for Haarhuis, whose 7-5, 7-5 win over never-say-die Vasek in a hard-fought battle put an end to years of waiting for a singles triumph. In the previous two years Haarhuis had fallen in the last hurdle of his three finals and had never got beyond the semifinals at the US$300,000 Danamon tournament here.

"Everybody always says I'm a good doubles specialist. People never look at my singles record," said Haarhuis who tops the ATP World Doubles ranking. He is currently ranked number 59 in the latest singles ranking.

Haarhuis lost his singles finals in Singapore in 1992, and in Doha and Philadelphia last year.

Playing before a crowd of 200 at the 3,000-seat Senayan indoor tennis stadium, second seed Haarhuis got off to a dreadful start when he dropped his game for 0-3 down, following a string of Vasek's punishing crosscourts.

The Czech world number 132 hit every stroke perfectly, except for his volleys. He saved a break point only to lose the fifth game after he netted a stop volley. Vasek came back to take charge, firing Haarhuis' baseline with his two-handed backhand for another break to take a 5-3 lead.

But Vasek, who making his first finals appearance, lost his grip during the decisive game. He double faulted three times as Haarhuis fired his passing shots for two breaks in a row. The Dutchman did not waste too much time while serving for a first- set win, banging an ace and three big serves to seal the set.

Haarhuis kept up his steam in the second set as Vasek remained in big trouble with his volleys. Vasek added his wide lobs with two netted stop volleys to concede a break in the fifth game and let his rival go 5-3 ahead.

Composure is always the key point during a pivotal game. Serving for a win, Haarhuis shot every return wide to allow Vasek to come level at 5-5.

But error-prone Vasek squandered his chance with dozens of netted volleys, allowing his opponent to regain his confidence. Haarhuis slammed his big serves to end Vasek's resistance.

"We get the confidence when we play rivals whose rankings are far below us, but both Vasek and I have the same chance to win the match since we played well to reach the final," said Haarhuis, who walked away with the winner's $43,000 in cash.

Australia Open

He added that the victory would help him to play better in the Australian Open, which starts today. However the tournament could turn out to have been a bad warm-up ground, since there is a big contrast in climate between Jakarta and Melbourne.

Heavy rains have drenched Jakarta throughout the week while the heat in Melbourne has been 33 degree Celsius.

Haarhuis will play singles as well as doubles with compatriot Jacco Eltingh. The Dutch tandem won the Australia Open men's doubles last year.

Haarhuis reiterated his disappointment with the poor turn-out during the week-long tournament. "It's too bad to see no crowd when we play hard. It's frustrating," he said.

In the doubles, Russian-Australian duo of Andrei Olhovskiy and David Adams took their first title of the year after beating Ronald Agenor of Haiti and Shuzo Matsuoka 7-5, 6-3. Olhovskiy and Adams, who finished 1994 as world team number six, shared the top prize money of $21,000 (amd).