By James Waterson Photo Credit: Tony Chang
(July 31, 2011) Ernests Gulbis of Latvia earned his second career title after he outlasted Mardy Fish 5-7, 6-4, 6-4 in the final of the Farmers Classic in Los Angeles on Sunday.
The match was tightly contested, as both players won 98 points and Fish won a higher percentage of his serve and return points.
Yet it was the 22-year-old Gulbis, currently ranked No. 84, that won the points that mattered in the final set. Both players broke serve, but it was the Latvian who earned the decisive break.
The title is great news for Gulbis, who has had a rough season. At the beginning of the year he was ranked in the top 30, but since the second week of January he failed to win two matches in a row in all but one tournament, the Open de Nice Cote d'Azur in May.
After that tournament, he lost four matches in a row, including at the French Open and Wimbledon.
But this week, he's been a different player.
Even his victory against Fish, who is the World No. 9, is a surprise because he hadn't beaten a player in the top 10 since he beat Mikhail Youzhny, then ranked No. 10, at the ATP Masters tournament in Paris last November.
Whether he can replicate this level for the rest of the year remains to be seen, but the good news for the Latvian is he doesn't have many points to defend, so he could see a rise in his ranking even if he loses early in a few tournaments.