TOKYO, 6 October 2003 — Russian Maria Sharapova won her first WTA Tour title and men’s top seed Rainer Schuettler completed an efficient 7-6, 6-2 victory over Sebastien Grosjean at the Japan Open yesterday.

Sharapova, 16, won a tense 2-6, 6-2, 7-6 battle against unseeded Hungarian Aniko Kapros.

Pumping her fist after each point, Sharapova fought back from 5-2 down in the third-set tiebreak to win five successive points in a nail-biting climax.

The Russian closed out with a well placed second serve on her third match point that Kapros failed to control after two hours and 10 minutes. A sobbing Sharapova hugged her father Yuri, who had raced on to the court to congratulate her at the end of a stamina-sapping final.

Schuettler won his first title in two years with a convincing victory over second-seeded Frenchman Grosjean.

The German, without a tournament win since Shanghai in 2001, took the first-set tiebreak 7-5 and broke Grosjean in the opening game of the second set.

Australian Open runner-up Schuettler secured a double break in the seventh game to go 5-2 up and wrapped up victory on his first match point with a whipped cross-court forehand. Schuettler had not dropped a set during the tournament but the 27-year-old was slow to start in the final, dropping his serve in the opening game.

However, he broke back in the eighth game with a sizzling forehand down the line.

Myskina, Dent Win

Again — in Moscow

Local heroine Anastasia Myskina and American Taylor Dent won the Kremlin Cup finals yesterday to complete titles in successive weeks.

Coming of his Thailand Open crown last week, Dent slammed a total 61 aces over the Moscow week which he completed with a 7-6 (7-5), 6-4 victory over Armenian Sargis Sargsian.

Myskina became the first women from the host nation to lift the trophy after defeating French player Amelie Mauresmo, 6-2, 6-4. It was her sixth career title, a week after winning in Leipzig.

No Russian woman had won the annual WTA event in Moscow since it began as a $100,000 Virginia Slims tournament in 1989.

In what looked like a one-sided contest, the 22-year-old Muscovite — seeded fourth here — secured a memorable victory on her second match-point when Mauresmo’s forehand landed wide. She picked up a winner’s check for $189,000 with Mauresmo pocketing $102,000.

The 22-year-old Dent, who won the inaugural Thailand Open last week, defeated the 30-year-old veteran Sargsian in their first ever meeting, to clinch his third year’s and fourth career tile.

The opponents, both unseeded here, keept their serves throughout the opening set to force a tiebreak, which Dent won 7-5 to go 1-0 up after 53 minutes on court.

After the match Dent was awarded a silver trophy by Cartier and a $133,000 check, with Sargsian earning $78,250.