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Montanes wins Estoril Open

By RobPeterson (TennisEarth.com), Submitted On

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Spaniard Albert Montanes came back from the brink of defeat to beat American James Blake 5-7, 7-6(6), 6-0 after a marathon two hour and 14 minute battle in the finals of the Estoril Open, played here in Estoril, Portugal.

Montanes saved two match points at 4-5 en route to his victory over Blake. The victory gives Montanes 250 South African Airways ATP Singles Rankings points.

"It was an incredible match," said Montanes. "It was very close. James was playing very aggressive and when I saved both match points it gave me some confidence. I had already saved one match point against Simon, so I just kept fighting. In the third set I felt he was tired and I took advantage of that. I don't want to think about Madrid yet. I want to think about this moment, winning the title. I feel very confident at the moment."

Blake who reached the 23rd final of his career sounded quite technical yet philosophical about his loss on Sunday - “Tennis is a game of inches. If he missed the line by one inch on one of the match points, I would have won. It didn’t and he gained confidence. It happens to every player. Today, it happened to me in the final. With the exception of one bad set I played some high-level tennis all week.

“Of course I’m disappointed in a loss. But I’m going to try and look back in the next couple of days and think about it positively," Blake added. "I came in here with very little confidence on clay, having lost my last two matches. At least now I won my last four matches and put myself in a position to win a clay-court tournament. I couldn’t take advantage of it, but I will go onto next week’s tournament with a lot more confidence and try and duplicate the results.”