Sports
Gulbis Takes Farmers Classic Crown
The Latvian upsets top seed Mardy Fish in the tennis final at UCLA.
All of the cards seemed to be stacked against Ernests Gulbis going into Sunday afternoon's singles final of the Farmers Classic at the Los Angeles Tennis Center on the campus of UCLA.
The unseeded Latvian was facing top-seeded Mardy Fish practically in his own backyard (he lives in nearby Beverly Hills) and in front of his home crowd. Fish was also riding a wave of confidence, having won his sixth ATP Tour title in Atlanta the week before.
The situation grew even more grim for Gulbis on Sunday after he double faulted to give Fish the first set 7-5. Instead of caving in, however, Gulbis dug down deep to break Fish for a 4-3 lead in the second set. After holding serve twice to level the match, Gulbis raced to leads of 4-1 and 5-2 in the third and final set, but Fish broke and held to pull within 5-4.
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Fish, ranked No. 9 in the world, had a break point to pull even in the set, but Gulbis erased it and held on for a 5-7, 6-4, 6-4 victory in two hours and 43 minutes. It was an impressive run for the 22-year-old from Jurmala, Latvia, who won his second ATP Tour event and moved up to 55th in the rankings. He had to knock off three of the top six seeds--having defeated No. 6 Xavier Malisse of Belgium in the first round and upsetting No. 2 Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina in the semifinals.
Gulbis captured his only other title at Delray Beach, Fla., last year and improved to 7-28 against Top 10 players.
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Despite losing Sunday and dropping to 6-13 in finals, Fish moved up one spot to No. 8 in the latest ATP rankings with 2,550 points and remains the highest-rated American.
Serbia's Novak Djokovic is ranked No. 1 with 13,155 points, followed by Spaniard Rafael Nadal (11,270) and Switzerland's Roger Federer (9,530). Andy Roddick (2,110 points) is the second American at No. 12.
In the earlier doubles final, third-seeded Malisse and former UCLA player Mark Knowles edged Somdev Devvarman of India and Trent Conrad Huey of the Philippines, 7-6 (3), 7-6 (10).
Knowles, a 39-year-old from the Bahamas, notched his 54th career doubles victory and moved into a tie for 16th on the all-time doubles titles list, joining Jonas Bjorkman, Brian Gottfried, Paul Haarhuis and Sherwood Stewart. Knowles played for the Bruins from 1990-92.
