HOUSTON - American wild card Ryan Sweeting became the fourth player since 2000 to claim his first career title at the US Men's Clay Court Championship with a 6-4 7-6(3) win over sixth seed Kei Nishikori.
Early in the week, Sweeting had his service broken nine times in three matches. During the semifinals and finals on the weekend, he was broken just once, early in Sundays second set.
Nishikori battled to hold serve in the opening game of the match, then things were fairly routine for both players until Sweeting got the first advantage of the day with a break in the ninth game before serving out the set 6-4.
The players exchanged breaks in the third and fourth games of the second set before things got very interesting in the 10th game. Sweeting fought off three break chances as they battled through 10 deuces in a game that lasted nearly 20 minutes.
After Sweeting held, both players picked up easy holds to force a tie-break.
A Sweeting double fault knotted the tie-break at 3-all, but he then won the next four points to close out the match.
On match point, Sweeting fell to his back on the clay to celebrate the win.
Sweeting joins Fernando Gonzalez (2000), Ivo Karlovic (2007) and Marcel Granollers (2008) in making the Clay Courts their first career title since 2000. He is the first American champion of this event since Mardy Fish claimed the title in 2006.
