LONDON, 24 February 2004, 24 February 2004 — Joachim Johansson claimed his first ATP title on Sunday with a 7-6, 6-3 victory over Germany’s Nicolas Kiefer to clinch the Kroger St. Jude in Memphis.
The Swede, who beat Kiefer in San Jose last week, secured the silverware in 94 minutes to become the fourth different Swedish winner in Memphis. The 21-year-old Johansson joins Bjorn Borg, Stefan Edberg and Magnus Larsson on the champions’ roll of honor.
“It feels great,” he said. “There have been three other Swedish players to win this title and now I’m the fourth. It’s been some time since a Swedish player has won a tournament. I haven’t seen that much of Memphis but it’s always going to be very close to my heart for the rest of my life.
“I always wanted to win an ATP tournament. It was a great crowd out there so it’s going to be very special for me.
“I’d won a few challengers and I was playing well at the end of last year so I was hoping I could keep that form up and keep playing like that this year and that’s what happened. But I didn’t expect to win my first title so soon.”
Eighth seed Kiefer took consolation from his performance in reaching the final - his first since Hong Kong in 2000.
“I played much better than last week,” he said, referring to his first round defeat to Johansson in San Jose.
“But I didn’t get so many chances on his serve. He has a big serve. I had a few 15-30 chances but he came up with the big serves and it just didn’t go my way today. He deserved to win.
“If someone had told me when I came here last Saturday that I would be in the final, I would have taken it straight away.
“Anyway, it’s a great success for me to be in the final and to have won four great matches, also to show to myself that I can still do it.
“All the great work is paying off. I didn’t play my best tennis for many months. I just tried to stay in during the first round, the second round again I played a bad match but I just tried to stay in.
“I’m looking forward to winning some matches.”
Schiavone Suffers Early Exit
Francesca Schiavone became the first seed to fall at the Dubai Open yesterday when she was outplayed 6-4, 6-4 by Russia’s Svetlana Kuznetsova. Kuznetsova, winner of the doubles title with Martina Navratilova last year and recent doubles runner-up at the Australian Open, tormented the seventh-seeded Italian.
“It was tough, she puts a lot of balls back and all the time I was down on my serve, 0-30 three times and 0-40 once,” said Kuznetsova, who used her doubles skills to great effect.
“But I’m pretty happy because I was fighting all the time and didn’t make easy mistakes. Last year I made a lot of unforced errors, and in Australia also, and I’ve been working to avoid that.”
In other matches, Australian Alicia Molik lined up a second round meeting with No. 2 seed Venus Williams with a 7-6, 6-2 defeat of Maria Vento-Kabchi of Venezuela. Bulgaria’s Magdalena Maleeva was edged out 2-6, 6-4, 7-5 by Anca Barna of Germany.
Americans Jennifer Capriati and Williams will play here, making a return from injuries. Capriati will make her 2004 debut as a third seed with a first-round bye. The former world No. 1 missed the first month and a half of the season with a back injury suffered at November’s WTA Tour Championship in Los Angeles.
Capriati was a semifinalist here last year, losing to Belgium’s Justine Henin-Hardenne, who defends her Dubai crown after withdrawing last week in her homeland due to a respiratory illness. Top seed Henin-Hardenne has not played since beating compatriot Kim Clijsters in the Australian Open final last month.
Federer Leads as Hewitt Makes Gains
Roger Federer maintained first place in the ATP points race rankings issued yesterday, while ex-No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt and Joachim Johansson made big gains courtesy of tournament victories the previous day.
The Australian Open champion Federer of Switzerland tops the list with 212 points ahead of Russian Marat Safin (140) and Spain’s Juan Carlos Ferrero (126). Hewitt climbed from eighth to fourth place with 115 points by virtue to his Rotterdam title on Sunday. The same day, Johansson won his first career title in Memphis which made him shoot from 34th to ninth place with 77 points.
Clijsters Closes Gap
Kim Clijsters closed in slightly on leader Justine Henin-Hardenne as the two Belgians continued to dominate the WTA tennis rankings issued yesterday. Henin-Hardenne leads the way with 7,000 points ahead of Clijsters, who has 6,699 from her Antwerp title Sunday. French player Amelie Mauresmo is third with 3,353 points in an unchanged top 10.
