STARNBERG, November 1, 2020
John Millman has captured his maiden title on the ATP Tour winning the inaugural Astana Open in Nur-Sultan, the first ATP event held in Kazakhstan. The 31-year-old Australian defeated No. 3 seed Adrian Mannarino of France 7-5, 6-1 in Sunday’s singles final.
In his third tour-level championship match, No. 4 seed Millman saved all six break points he faced and capitalized on three of his own six break-point chances to prevail after one hour and 48 minutes.
Millman’s the man in Nur-Sultan 💪
Australia’s @johnhmillman claims his maiden ATP title, defeating Adrian Mannarino 7-5 6-1 at @AstanaOpen pic.twitter.com/MCWIov1QP1
— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) November 1, 2020
“Thank you for always supporting me, not just in the good times but the tough times. This is my first ATP 250 that I’ve won and it’s really special that I could do so in Nur-Sultan,” Millman said.
Millman took away from the capital city of Kazakhstan $13,410 in prize money as well as 250 ATP Ranking points.
Gille/Vliegen take doubles title
Earlier in the day, Sander Gille and Joran Vliegen of Belgium clinched the doubles title. The top seeds defeated the all-Australian combination of Max Purcell and Luke Saville 7-5, 6-3. The encounter lasted one hour and 18 minutes.
“It has been a short year with some ups and downs, but I think we can be very happy about our level,” said Vliegen after lifting their first trophy of the season. “We switched sides just before the restart, so we knew it was going to take some time and [the change] would not be giving us titles right away.
“We are very happy with the level we showed this week here in Kazakhstan, playing with a lot of confidence. I think we did a lot of things right, so we are very happy.”
Gille added: “I am very proud [of our finals record]. It was something that I was thinking about before the match. I think last year we just did really well and then to have three titles in the bag already made me a lot less stressed today… I had a really nice feeling before the match and then you start it feeling good, feeling loose. To end the match winning again, getting the fourth [trophy], is just a great feeling.”
