By Charles Bricker
Florian Mayer insisted two days ago he was playing his “best tennis ever,” but it wasn’t easy to buy into that without one really magnificent victory this year.
Now he’s got it, with a 6-4, 6-4 conquest of former No. 6 (now No. 21) Gilles Simon of France to win the $125,000 BMW Challenger in Sunrise, Fla., Sunday afternoon.
In windy conditions that didn’t seem advantageous for Mayer’s big backswing and looping forehand ground strokes, the 26-year-old German bolted out to a 4-0 lead in the opening and a 3-1 lead in the second and stayed in front. As he did in his semifinal win over Santiago Giraldo of Colombia, he ended this match with an ace.
Mayer first few years on the ATP Tour had seen him hangingn consistently around the 40-60 area in the rankings and he came to Florida at No. 53. But the 125 points he picked up here, along with $18,000 in prize money, should vault him to near No. 40 when the new rankings come out today.
His won/loss record remains at 5-3 because this was a Challenger, but three of those wins are over Tommy Robredo, Janko Tipsarevic and Victor Troicki — all world class talents if not marquee players. Simon, however, is a major notch in the belt. He’s been fighting through tendonitis in his right knee, but it didn’t seem to bother him this week and, when he’s completely fit, he’s definitely a top-20 and perhaps a top-10 talent.
Simon was No. 6 last May.
In the doubles final, Martin Damm of the Czech Republic and partner Filip Polasek of Slovakia came from 4-9 down in the super tiebreak to defeat No. 1 seeded Leander Paes of India and Lukas Dlouhy of the Czech Republic — the reigning French and U.S. Open champions. The score was 4-6, 6-1, 13-11.
Paes, who has won 42 doubles titles, and Dlouhy had five chances to put the match away in the super tiebreak. On one of those points, Dlouhy double-faulted.
Charles Bricker can be reached at nflwriterr@aol.com