What a final!!!
World no.77 Joao Sousa came from absolutely nowhere to win his maiden title in Kuala Lumpur. Joao made already headlines by upsetting David Ferrer in straight sets in the quarters, but today he was even better.
The Portuguese lost the first set 6-2 without giving much opposition and Julien Benneteau (desperate to win his first ATP single title at 31 years of age) was leading 6-2 5-4 and he had a championship point. The Frenchman played the point rather well to attack on Sousa’s forehand that passed him with a magic shot. From that moment everything changed.
Julien started to have problems to attach Sousa to lose 5 consecutive games and find himself 0-2 down in the decider. Then the Frenchman found some confidence to be a bit more aggressive, but he was missing many opportunities on some short shots from Sousa.
Joao finally managed to win the match after a couple of tough holds of serve. This epic final lasted 2 hours and 18 minutes.
Sousa was as happy as it can get… we can’t say the same for Julien that is the runner-up in Malaysia for the second consecutive year… and that missed opportunity on the match point… it’s heavy.
Now ranked world no. 77 Sousa is expected to break into the top 50s next week. It seems that Portugal has a new tennis star!
Sousa: We both played a great match
“I just gave my best, it was a tough shot there, I just went for it and it went it… Tennis is like this, if you don’t go for it, you’ll never make it, so I just went for it. We both played a great match. He had a lot of chances to win.” said the Portoguese
