MUNICH: Second seed Ben Shelton won the ATP 500 clay-court tournament in Munich for the first time with a 6-2, 7-5 victory over the Italian Flavio Cobolli who had such an impressive win over Alexander Zverev in the semis.

One year after losing in the final to Zverev, world No. 6 Shelton claimed the fifth ATP title of his career and his second of the season after Dallas, on hard court.

“I came out at a really high level and have done that before against him,” said Shelton after the match. “The toughest thing is maintaining it as he raises his level. I managed to do that in the second set and played some great tennis.

“I am happy with my performance this week. I got better and better as the week went on and I am happy with the work me and the team put in.”

Shelton, who won an ATP 250-level clay-court tournament clay in Houston in 2024, also became the first American man since Andre Agassi at the Rome Masters 1000 in 2002 to win a tournament on the surface at a higher level.

“I have big ambitions for the clay courts,” Shelton added. “It is a surface I want to get better on each year. It is slowly becoming one of my favourite surfaces to play on.”

Shelton had a comfortable ride against opponents outside the world’s top 30 until the final although world no. 16 Cobolli was unable to reproduce the performance which did for Zverev.

The American cruised through the first set, breaking his opponent’s first two service games, even though Cobolli saved eight set points — six of them on his own serve — before finally yielding on the ninth.

The second set was much more tightly contested as it went with serve up to 5-5.

But a double fault from Cobolli handed Shelton a break at the perfect moment, and he made no mistake in closing it out after 1 hour 31 minutes.

Published in Dawn, April 20th, 2026