DELRAY BEACH, February 22, 2016
Sam Querrey is the champion of the Delray Beach Open, winning Sunday’s all-US-American-final against Rajeev Ram 6-4, 7-6. The 28-year-old from Las Vegas fired 10 aces , winning 70% of his first service points and capitalized on three of his four break point chances to notch his fourth victory over Ram in the pair’s fifth tour meeting after one hour and 25 minutes of play.
Sam Querrey lifting the trophy in Delray Beach (source: twitter)
Querrey won his first ATP World Tour title since Los Angeles 2012 and improved to 8-7 tour-level-finals after losing in Houston to Jack Sock as well as in Nottingham to Istomin last year.
“We were both a little nervous today, it wasn’t the cleanest match. I just battled through and happened to hit one great shot in the second set, and it was on match point,” Querrey told.
“Sometimes it feels better to win when you don’t play your best, because you know you have another gear. I had two finals last year, both close losses, so it feels good to be in the winner’s circle.”
Ram had to admit the defeat.
“I played well on match point, I thought. He just came up with a great shot. People don’t give [Querrey] credit for how well he moves,” he said.
“It’s hard when you play someone you know so well in a final. I would’ve loved to hold my serve every time and win 6-4, 6-4, but that’s not how it works. What I was more disappointed about was not keeping the momentum I had in both sets. I thought I played well in the tie-break, but he hit the outside of the line three times.”
Oliver Marach and Fabrice Martin saved six match points to stop the three-peat bid of the Bryan Brothers in the doubles finals. The Austrian-French-combination won 3-6, 7-6, 13-11 in one hour and 44 minutes.
“It was a big honour to play against the Bryans in the final,” said Marach during the on-court trophy ceremony. “Fabrice and I have a great relationship. We only started playing together recently but I hope we continue and win some more tournaments this year.”
“We always thought we had nothing to lose,” Martin added. “We knew we were going to make it a good match. We give it everything we had, and we got a bit lucky in the end.”
The Bryan brothers were aiming for a record 110th tour-level title and their first since winning in the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event in Montreal last summer. They fell despite not being broken in the final.
“It hurts,” Mike Bryan said. “We’ll probably have a sleepless night, thinking about what we could have done differently, but that’s doubles. It’s a fine line.
“David Cup will be big,” added Bob Bryan, who is looking forward to the rest of the early season. “Then we’ll head down to Indian Wells and Miami, and hopefully kick off the year with a win over there.”
