BURNIE, February 2, 2020
Taro Daniel is the champion of the Caterpillar Burnie International held at the Burnie Tennis Club. The top seed of the $54,160 ATP Challenger hard-court event defeated No. 10 seed Yannick Hanfmann from Germany 6-4, 6-2 in Sunday’s singles final.
After a first-round bye, Daniel advanced to the title match with wins over fellow Japanese Yuta Shimizu, Tung-Lin Wu of Chinese Taipei, Mohamed Safwat from Egypt and Briton Jay Clarke. The World No. 110 won 72 per cent of his first-service points in the final and broke Hanfmann’s serve four times to secure victory in one hour and 18 minutes.
— doublefault28 (@doublefault28) February 2, 2020
“Burnie won! First victory in two years! It was able to keep calm without breaking down even in the storm. I will head to Pune, India tomorrow early in the morning! Thank you for your support and sponsors,” Daniel posted on Twitter.
By lifting his sixth ATP Challenger career trophy, his first since Buenos Aires 2017, Daniel took away from Australia $7,200 in prize money as well as 80 ATP Ranking points. The 27-year-old New York native clinched his maiden crown on the ATP Tour by winning the TEB BNP Paribas Istanbul Open last year.
今日のトロフィー🏆 Real trophy of the week 💪 pic.twitter.com/TxJUhvVn7o
— ダニエル太郎/Taro Daniel (@tarodaniel93) February 2, 2020
Earlier in the day, Harri Heliovaara from Finland and Sem Verbeek of the Netherlands clinched the doubles title. The No. 4 seeds fought past the tournament’s No. 3 Luca Margaroli from Switzerland and Italy’s Andrea Vavassori 7-6(5), 7-6(4). The encounter lasted almost two hours.
