MOSCOW: US Open champion Marin Cilic continued his fine season by beating fifth seeded Spaniard Roberto Bautista-Agut in straight sets to win the Kremlin Cup in Moscow on Sunday.

The 26-year-old Croat, a career-high eighth in the ATP rankings fired 10 aces in a 6-4, 6-4 victory, his first ever meeting with Bautista-Agut.

Cilic thus became the first Croat to win in the Russian capital since his coach Goran Ivanizevic took the Kremlin Cup title in 1996.

In reaching the final he also booked his spot in the season-ending ATP World Tour Finals in London.

Second-seeded Cilic broke his rival’s serve halfway through the opening set before serving it out in 46 minutes.

He started the second set with an immediate break.

Bautista-Agut, 16th in the world, who was playing his fourth career final, fought tooth and nail to try to break back but Cilic held his nerve to win his fourth ATP Tour crown this year and the 13th of his career.

At the award ceremony Cilic promised to come back next year to defend his title.

“It’s one of my career’s most important titles because after winning a Grand Slam event you lose a lot of energy and emotions and it was very important for me to bounce back,” Cilic said.

“I feel that a win here will be a serious push forward for my career and very important for my further progress.

“Today I still wasn’t able to serve really big bombs. I played more from the baseline and we had plenty of long and physical rallies. It was a really tough match, as I expected.” Earlier on Sunday, sixth seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia claimed the WTA title at the event by beating Romania’s Irina-Camelia Begu 6-4, 5-7, 6-1 in two hours 28 minutes.

The women’s final got off to a nervy start that produced seven breaks of serve in the opening set before the 30th-ranked Pavlyuchenkova managed to settle down.

The Russian pocketed the set in 50 minutes but it was Begu, playing in her fourth WTA Tour final, who dominated the second set to break serve twice and level the match.

In the deciding set Pavlyuchenkova again moved up a gear to break twice for a commanding 5-0 lead, taking her to the seventh title win of her career.

“It’s just the best possible way to finish the season,” Pavlyuchenkova said at the award ceremony.

“It was a really tough match. We were both fighting but somebody had to win. I just couldn’t have lost at home.”

Murray boosts London bid

Andy Murray boosted his chances of making the ATP World Tour Finals on Sunday when he defeated Spain’s David Ferrer 5-7, 6-2, 7-5 to claim the Austrian Open for his 30th career title.

The hard-fought victory in two hours, 41 minutes sends the Scot to just shy of eighth spot in the points race for the London season-ending finale which begins in three weeks.

Murray and Ferrer, the top seed and playing the event on a wild card like the Scot, were almost dead-level this week in the race for the last three places at the eight-man season wrap-up.

“It always feels great to win a title,” said Murray, who lost to Ferrer at the Shanghai Masters last week. “This was an extremely difficult match.

“He deserved to win the first set, I deserved the second and the third could have gone either way. I’m lucky I just managed to pull it off,” he said of a final set which featured seven breaks of serve.

Murray took victory when a serve was ruled an ace by electronic line-calling.

Ferrer still trails Murray by just a handful of points in the race to the season-ending showpiece, with both men now heading to Valencia for next week’s competition.

Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Stan Wawrinka and Marin Cilic have already booked their places for London.

Berdych dethrones Dimitrov

Top-seeded Tomas Berdych battled back to defeat defending champion Grigor Dimitrov 5-7, 6-4, 6-4 to claim the Stockholm Open on Sunday and improve his chances of making the World Tour Finals.

Berdych, 29, is seeking to qualify for the London season-ending showpiece for the fifth consecutive year and the Czech currently stands in seventh place in the race for the eight-man event with five spots already decided.

Victory on Sunday was the 10th title of Berdych’s career and fourth straight on indoor hard courts.

“It was a great fight and it was the best match at the end. I was the luckier one today,” said Berdych.

Second-seeded Bulgarian Dimitrov, who is also in contention for the season finale, to be held Nov. 9-16 in London, was bidding to claim his fourth title of the year, following triumphs in Acapulco, Bucharest and Queen’s.