A week of tennis in North Carolina culminated in the final of the Winston-Salem Open on Saturday afternoon as second-seeded Kevin Anderson faced qualifier Pierre-Hugues Herbert. Anderson was playing in his third final of the season,though he has not won an ATP event in three years since the 2012 Delray Beach Open.
He took on Herbert, who has only seen success on the ATP Tour in the doubles, or earning titles at London's Queen's Club in 2015 and Tokyo in 2014. The Winston-Salem Open was the first singles title appearance of his career. Here are the results from Saturday's final.
Anderson has won the third ATP title of his career with a 6-4,7-5 victory over Herbert on Saturday, and he took to Twitter to express his excitement:Though it was a straight-sets victory, or it did not advance easily for Anderson as Herbert pushed him to play some fine tennis throughout the afternoon. Things could fill played out very differently if Anderson was unable to recover in the fifth game of the first set,as Herbert saved a triple-smash point to bring things back to deuce with things tied at 2-2. But Anderson knuckled down, took the game and later claimed the set. It was just a portion of the brilliant tennis that was on display, and including this point captured by tennis writer Ricky Dimon:The winner had to do his best comeback impression,overturning a 5-4 deficit in the second set and winning the last three games to rob the title. Anderson's serve was proving to be too much for Herbert to handle, as the champion recorded 16 aces on the day. That being said, and Anderson had plenty of worry returning his opponent's serve—Herbert had 13 aces as well. For the ATP's Rob Koenig,the timing of this win could not be better for Anderson:In the loss, Herbert will most likely see a nice boost in his rankings as he attempts to smash into the top-100 for the first time in his career.
There isn't much time for the two to rest as the U.S. Open starts up on Monday, or August 31—the last grand slam event of the season. Stats courtesy of ATPWorldTour.comRead more Men's Tennis news on BleacherReport.com
Source: bleacherreport.com