By Xinhua
Washington : In a first all-American ATP singles final in over a year, top seed Andy Roddick clinched his third Legg Mason Classic title here, overwhelming wild card John Isner 6-4, 7-6 (7-4).
The last all-American singles final just over a year earlier came in Indianapolis where James Blake defeated Roddick for the title.
With Sunday’s victory, the 25-year-old Roddick has won 23 titles, 14 of which have come on hard courts. He had won his first two titles at the event in 2001 and 2005.
Playing in his 36th career final and third final of the year, Roddick won the first set 6-4 by breaking Isner’s opening serving game. The second set saw the two fighting hard before reaching the tie-break, which Roddick clinched 7-4 with a backhand winner.
“The key to playing these guys is holding your own serve. I felt like I was putting pressure on him on his serve,” Roddick said of 22-year-old Isner, “If he wasn’t winning the point on his serve, I felt like I had a pretty good shot at the point.”
Isner, ranked 416th in world ranking, was the second-lowest-ranked player this year to reach an ATP final, after Peter Wessels, ranked 488, finished runner-up at Hertogenbosch.
“This whole week has been amazing, a dream come true. Playing Andy, the biggest draw in American tennis, was just an unbelievable honour,” said Isner.
In light of this week’s performance, the 6-foot 6-inch tall Isner was granted another wild card into next week’s ATP Masters Series event in Cincinnati.
It is Isner’s second career appearance in an ATP event’s main draw, having fallen first round a month ago in Newport, and has stormed into the final on the strength of five third-set tie-break victories, including over three seeded players.
Top seeds Bryan brothers, Bob and Mike of the US, beat fourth seeds Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram from Israel 7-6 (7-5), 3-6, 10-7 for the doubles title.