Seppi rallies past Bellucci to win Kremlin Cup

MOSCOW (AFP) –

Italy’s Andreas Seppi kisses the trophy at the end of his Kremlin Cup tennis tournament final match against Brazil’s Thomaz Bellucci on October 21 in Moscow. Seppi won the match 3-6, 7-6, 6-3.

Second seeded Italian Andreas Seppi battled from a set down to see off fourth seed Thomaz Bellucci of Brazil to win the ATP Kremlin Cup title on Sunday.

The 28-year-old Seppi won through 3-6, 7-6 (7/3), 6-3 for his third career title and second of the year.

“Thomaz started well and was serving very good, while I experienced problems on return,” Seppi said. “But I tried hard to stay close and put pressure on him.

“He played two bad games when he was serving for the match in the second set and it added me some confidence and helped me to win the tie-break and especially in the third set.”

Bellucci, 24, who was playing his first ever indoor final, broke his opponent’s serve in the fourth game for a 3-1 lead, which he held for a one-set lead in 30 minutes.

No big serves were produced in the second set before the seventh game, when the opponents began trading breaks.

Bellucci, ranked 41st, was serving for the match twice but the Italian refused to surrender and broke back twice forcing a tiebreak, which he won to level proceedings after one hour 27 minutes on court.

In the deciding set Seppi was in command breaking his rival’s serve twice to take the set and the match in two hours 11 minutes.

The winner Seppi got a silver trophy by Cartier and 121,520-dollar prize purse, while runner-up Bellucci received 64,000 of prize dollars.

Earlier on Sunday third seed and former world number one Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark won the WTA Kremlin Cup title beating top seeded Australian Samantha Stosur 6-3, 4-6, 7-5 in the final.