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Guillermo Canas wins Mercedes Cup Tennis
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-07-19 08:55

Guillermo Canas of Argentina won the Mercedes Cup on Sunday, beating countryman and French Open champion Gaston Gaudio in five sets for his fourth career title.

Canas, who was not seeded, won the clay-court final 5-7, 6-2, 6-0, 1-6, 6-3 in 3 hours, 40 minutes. Canas trailed 2-0 in the final set, then won the next four games.


Argentina's Guillermo Canas returns a ball to his compatriot Gaston Gaudio during the final of the Mercedes Cup ATP tennis tournament at the Weissenhof in Stuttgart, southern Germany on Sunday, July 18, 2004. [AP]
"It's something special," he said. "I've waited a long time for this. I've lost two finals here. Finally, I did it."

Canas won a tournament for the first time since the 2002 Masters Series event in Toronto, his biggest title. He missed most of last year with two wrist operations, and his ranking has slumped to 70th.

"A lot of bad things have happened to me with these two injuries," Canas said. "Now I've come back and won in Stuttgart — it's like a dream."

Gaudio had won 15 of his last 16 matches, including his run to the French Open title, but appeared worn out after 10 matches in 14 days.

"That was hard," said Gaudio, who needed 2 1/2 hours to eliminate David Ferrer in Saturday's semifinal. "I was tired, but he also played well."

While dropping the third set 6-0, Gaudio seemed exhausted and didn't contest many points. Between sets, he downed fruit and soft drinks.

He captured the fourth set easily, breaking serve in the first game. That set up the final set, with the players slugging it out from the baseline.

Canas lost the Mercedes Cup final in 2001 to Gustavo Kuerten and the following year to Mikhail Youzhny.




 
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