Argentina's David Nalbandian beat Marcos Baghdatis in Washington on Sunday to win his first ATP title since January of last year.
First title in the USA for Argentinian
Argentina's David Nalbandian won his first ATP title since January of last year with a 6-2 7-6 victory over eighth seed Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus in the final of the Washington Classic.
After sweeping through the first set, the second was a much tighter affair.
But the unseeded Nalbandian won the first five points of the tiebreaker before winning it 7-4 to capture his first title in the United States.
While Baghdatis landed only 39 per cent of his first serves, it was his failure to win the big points that cost him the match. The 25th-ranked Cypriot converted only two of his 11 break-point opportunities.
Nalbandian, a former world number three who has been sidelined for a total of 11 months with hip and hamstring injuries, claimed his 11th career crown in his first final since winning the title at Sydney 19 months ago.
The 28-year-old has missed the past six Grand Slams and had not played an ATP event since April.
At 117th in the world, Nalbandian is the lowest-ranked player to win an ATP title this year.
Baghdatis, 25, has won four career ATP titles, the most recent of them last January at Sydney, and is also on the comeback trail from wrist and back injuries after dropping out of the top 150 last year.
Nalbandian had lost three of the four previous meetings between the pair, including a 2006 Australian Open semi-final and their most recent meeting in the third round at Wimbledon in 2007.
