Moya Wins Classic No.1 Battle With Philippoussis To Reach Final
Carlos Moya won a titanic battle with Mark Philippoussis and moved a step closer to the year-end No.1 ranking after reaching the final of the Royal Guard Champions in Santiago, Chile.
Moya triumphed 6-3, 5-7, 12-10, and then watched through his fingers from the sidelines as Agustin Calleri won the final round-robin match in their group against Thomas Enqvist to ensure that Moya went through.
Moya's match against Philippoussis lived up to all expectations. Between them, they had snared all six ATP Champions Tour titles so far in 2011, the Australian winning Delray Beach, Zurich and Bogota, and Moya triumphing in Sao Paulo, Knokke-Heist and Chengdu. Philippoussis won their classic final in Bogota, Moya took revenge in Chengdu. On the ATP World Tour they had been tied at 3-3.
Philippoussis struggled early on, overhitting regularly as Moya took charge from the baseline. When the Spaniard led 4-1 in the second, it looked all over but suddenly the man known as 'Scud' hit a purple patch, blasting winners almost at will to take it into a deciding set Champions' Tie-Break. Philippoussis then seemed the more likely to win as he went up 8-4, but he couldn't capitalise on his advantage and Moya shot back to win it 12-10.
Afterwards, Moya, who had lost to Enqvist yesterday, knew that he needed Calleri to beat the Swede in order to go through to the final. He watched the entire match from the sidelines, looking rather tense. He admitted as much afterwards.
"Yes, I was quite tense watching that match, particularly in the final Champions' Tie-Break," said Moya. "I never had that before where you have to wait to find out what will happen. It's a great feeling to be in another final. It's been a strange week, losing to Thomas and then beating Mark today and then waiting for Thomas to play his match. That's a difficult situation that I never had before so I am very relieved that that result went my way."
Moya also paid tribute to Philippoussis, and explained how satisfying it is to be able to continue their rivalry. "Mark is a great player and we've known one another for a long time. I have memories of many battles in the past with him and it's great that we can play like this on the Champions Tour. If you want to beat him you have to raise your level as he is very fit and still plays so well so it is a great honour to have this rivalry with him. Today I was 6-3, 4-1 up and serving and he just started to play amazing. It could have gone either way and I was lucky to have won in the end."
The Spaniard will face Mariano Zabaleta in the final after the Argentine, a debutant on the ATP Champions Tour, defeated Greg Rusedski 7-6(2), 7-5.
Matches are played over the best of three sets, with a Champions’ Tie-break (first to 10 points with a clear advantage of two) to decide the winner. After all round-robin matches are complete, the top two players in each group will meet in Sunday's final.
After Santiago, the ATP Champions Tour will move on to London for the year-end AEGON Masters Tennis at the Royal Albert Hall (Nov 30 - Dec 4).
View the full schedule for the week.