By IANS,
New Delhi : Second seed South Korean Young-Jun Kim clinched his second $10,000 International Tennis Federation (ITF) in three weeks here at the DLTA stadium beating Japanese Kento Takeuchi 6-3, 6-1 Saturday.
The 29-year-old Kim was also the winner of the first of the three back-to-back ITF tournament here and has thus won 18 of his last 19 matches; his only loss came in the form a mid-match retirement when he had to concede his semi-final against Vishnu Vardhan due to a sore knee and exhaustion.
Kim, however, showed no signs of weariness this week as he dispatched his rivals with a clinical display.
In the final, too, he stamped his class even as Takeuchi could have made a match of it had he cashed in on the opportunities, specially in the first set.
The keenly contested first set saw both players attacking each other’s serve.
Sixth-seeded Takeuchi showed good court-craft and frequently charged the net but stumbled on crucial points.
Kim’s serve was his weapon, as it had been throughout the tournament, bailing him out of tight spots. The Korean displayed a solid game from the baseline and came up with some clean passes to blunt the Japanese attack.
He broke Takeuchi in the sixth game of the match hitting a superb a forehand cross-court and served out the first set in the ninth game.
Kim came out even stronger in the second set complementing his groundstrokes with some sharp volleys. Such was his grip on the set that Takeuchi could win just the first game as Kim reeled off the six games to win the set and the match.
The win will fetch Kim $1,300 and 17 ATP points while Takeuchi will pocket $900 and 9 ATP points.