SARASOTA, April 18, 2016

A battle of two baseliners ends with Mischa Zverev as the last-man standing at the White Sands Realty Group $100,000 Sarasota Open.

The 28-year old German beat 25-year old Gerald Melzer of Vienna, Austria, 6-4, 7-6 in Sunday’s final. Zverev sent down six aces and won 67% of his first service points. He capitalized on five of his 15 break point chances to claim his fifth ATP Challenger title, his first since lifting the trophy Dnepropetrovsk in 2007.

Zrevev says he was familiar with his opponent.

“I know him very well and he’s been playing great tennis this year, so I just tried to be very consistent–sometimes change it up a little bit, hit a few backhand down the line winners just to keep it entertaining, and it worked out well.”

With the win, Zverev gets $14,400 in prize money as well as 100 ATP ranking points, but he doesn’t know where that will leave him in the standings.

He says he enjoyed himself in Sarasota.

“It’s a great little tournament…I stayed with good friends of my family, it’s been a great week. Not too far from home where I train in Wesley Chapel at Saddlebrook. I really enjoyed the great facility, great people, very loving crowd and it was great,” said Zverev, who is ranked on 131st position on Monday.

Facundo Arguello and Nicolas Kicker

In the doubles final, Facundo Arguello become the first player to repeat as champion, teaming this year with fellow-Argentinian Nicolas Kicker to beat Marcelo Arevalo and Sergio Galdos 4-6, 6-4, 10-6.

Earlier in the day, the woman’s final featured a back-and-forth match, with 17-year old Katarina Kozarov of IMG Academy beating 14- year old Gia Cohen of the United Tennis Academy, 1-6, 7-5, 10-3. Kozarov lead 5-1 in the second set, only to have Cohen tie it up at 5-5. Kozarov gets $1,000 prize for the win. She plans to attend Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina in the Fall.