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Indian Wells Ambience 2019
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Del Potro claims hat trick of titles


Argentine teenager Juan Martin del Potro shocked crowd favourite Andy Roddick to win the Countrywide Classic in Los Angeles on Sunday.

Six feet six inch Juan Martin del Potro made it three ATP singles titles in a row with his 6-1, 7-6(5) victory over the top seed.

I was playing very good in clay courts, now I won on hard courts…

Juan Martin del Potro’s first hard court title after taking clay trophies in Stuttgart and Kitzbuhel this summer and he became the first Argentine to capture an ATP hard court title in the US since Guillermo Vilas in 1977.

The first plan was trying to return his serve, said third seed Del Potro, who moves five places to No.19 in todays world rankings.

He started to serve very slowly and I did very good returns. I broke very early in the first set. After that I start to play my game. I didn’t give him many chances.

I was playing very good in clay courts, now I won on hard courts. My confidence is tough. I hope to be good for the US Open because it is the most important tournament.

I prefer hard courts more than clay and I’m very happy to be done here because he’s one of the best players on this surface. Today I did everything good and I didn’t give him any chances to break my serve.

Despite the defeat, Roddick was positive about his run to the final.

I made it through the week, said the American, who is skipping the Olympics to concentrate on his US Open preparations.

I made a final out of nowhere. I haven’t even really been playing much. That’s a good sign that I was able to get this much better during the week. Hopefully I can continue along that pace. It was positive overall.

Both players now move on to this week’s Legg Mason Tennis Classic, which began in Washington DC on Sunday. They are the event’s top two seeds.

The doubles final saw scratch pairing Rohan Bopanna and Eric Butorac take the title at the UCLA venue.

The Indian-US combo beat Americas Travis Parrott and Serb Dusan Vemic 7-6(5), 7-6(5) in the final.

It was great, said Butorac afterwards. We’ve never played together before. We started out a little slow and kind of got better with each match.

I think we’re a pretty good team. We both serve pretty good. I’m left-handed, he’s right-handed so there’s different looks on the serve. It’s a good situation to be in.


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Tim Farthing, Tennishead Editorial Director & Owner, has been a huge tennis fan his whole life. He's a tennis journalist and entrepreneur as well as playing tennis to a national standard. He also helps manage his local club and volunteers for his local tennis organisation. He's a specialist in content about the administration of professional tennis and tennis coaching for all levels.