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| March 31, 2003 | Monday | Muharram 27, 1424 |
Agassi beats Moya to collect sixth title
MIAMI, March 30: Andre Agassi collected his six title at the 6.25- million-dollar Masters Series on Sunday, efficiently handling Carlos Moya 6-3, 6-3 to stay in the chase for the world number 1 ranking.
Agassi trails Lleyton Hewitt in the struggle for top honours while maintaining a lead in the separate, season-long Champions points race.
Agassi, who entered the event with a shoulder problem, played his way through to another title at his most productive venue in the 71- minute final.
His six titles are one better than the five claimed by wife Steffi Graf during her career.
The 32-year-old has now won 18 straight matches at the venue, levelling on a record set by Pete Sampras 1993-95. His last loss came to Gustavo Kuerten in the 2000 semifinals.
Defending champion Agassi picked up his third title of the season after Melbourne and San Jose. The winner earned 500,000 dollars, while Moya takes away half that amount.
Moya had been attempting to become the first Spaniard to win the title in Spanish-speaking Miami. The last to play a finals was Sergi Bruguera, who lost to Thomas Muster in 1997.
Agassi’s victory was his sixth from eight finals here.
Earlier, Andre Agassi gave Spain’s Albert Costa a lesson in hardcourt tennis as he romped to a 6-2 6-4 win on Saturday to reach his eighth final.
The American, who has dominated the tournament since 1990, picked off the ninth seed’s serve with deadly accuracy in the second semi-final of the $3.25 million hardcourt event.
SERENA WINS: Top seed Serena Williams came back from a set down to beat Jennifer Capriati 4-6 6-4 6-1 and win her second consecutive Nasdaq-100 Open title.
It was the world number one’s seventh straight win over Capriati, who was attempting to celebrate her 27th birthday by finally winning a tournament in which she was runner-up to Serena last year and her sister Venus in 2001.
Williams had to fight for her victory in a final lasting just over two hours in temperatures near 100 degrees Fahrenheit and in which the Heat Index Rule, allowing the players a 10-minute break at the end of the second set, was invoked.
Although Williams was not moving around the court as fluidly as usual, and made an uncharacteristic 42 unforced errors, the holder of all four grand slams always seemed to have enough in reserve to deal with any threat from her fellow American.
Williams took a 2-0 lead in the first set before Capriati broke back a game later and then extended her advantage in the fifth game when her opponent struck a forehand into the net.
Capriati needed only one of her two set points when Williams put a backhand service return long. The second set turned on the lengthy second game, in which Capriati was infuriated by a line call that gave Williams a fifth break point.
Capriati saved that but was clearly unsettled and Williams went on to take the game and secure a 4-0 lead in the set.
Williams foot-faulted in the next game and Capriati broke back, but missed another break point at 2-4 and the world number one never looked back as she took the set.
Errors began to creep into Capriati’s game in the third set and Williams took advantage of some sloppy returning as she marched on to complete her 17th straight victory of 2003.—dpa/Reuters
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