Tennis: Hrbaty takes men's open

4.00pm - By DAVE WORSLEY and NZPA

Unseeded Slovak Dominik Hrbaty won his second Heineken Open title with an exciting three set victory over Spanish left-hander Rafael Nadal in Auckland this afternoon.

Hrbaty was a winner of the event in 2001 and now has a record of 18 wins and 4 losses, the best of any player in the modern era.

Hrbaty won the final in a see-saw battle with each player taking the lead at various times but never being able to keep the opposition fully at bay.

The eventual score was 4-6 6-2 7-5 with both players given a standing ovation by the capacity crowd.

Even though he lost the final, Nadal, 17, had made shot after breathtaking shot to eliminate the second and fourth seeds Novak and Schalken in straight sets each time.

Hrbaty is one of the tour's quiet men, even when he gets red hot like he is at the moment. Coming to Auckland fresh off a brilliant tournament win in Adelaide, it would be hard not to see him going deep into the draw at Melbourne. He is the complete professional, lacking the big weapon of the top ten player but one of the tour's best strategists and temperamentally well-suited to high pressure.

Hrbaty broke Nadal's serve in the first game and quickly held his own to go to a 2-0 lead, and Nadal struggled in his following two service games but saved a total of five breaks points to bring the score to 4-2.

Then the Spaniard hit gear, and worked over Hrbaty's forehand with a vicious single-mindedness to win the next four games and the set. Until this point Hrbaty had been happy with the way the set was going, and looked very surprised by the turn of events... he was doing little different, but Nadal had found his rhythm and the speed of balls coming back at the Slovak was suddenly much quicker.

Nadal took the first set 6-2 and was up 2-1 in the second set before Hrbaty hit back and won the next four games including breaking Nadal's serve twice. In the third set Nadal raced to a 3-0 lead but Hrbaty then came back, winning the next three games including breaking Nadal's serve to love.

Games then went with serve until Hrbaty broke Nadal under amazing pressure from the Spaniard in the eleventh game to go up 6-5 with a big fist pump to celebrate. In the next game Hrbaty served out the tournament and the title 7-5 for his fourth career singles title and second in succession.

* * *

In the doubles Fabrice Santoro of France and Mahesh Bhupathi of India, the top seeds, won a three-set final against Jiri Novak and Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic.

The first-time pairing looked out for the count at 4-6 and then 3-5 down in the second set but went on to win 4-6 7-5 6-3.

"With Fabrice's return of serve, it is unwise to write us off," Bhupathi said.

They were pushed all the way, but had the class when it mattered.

When the Czechs went a set up, it looked as if the two matches Santoro and Bhupathi had played on Friday were catching up with them.

"I think we got better and better during the week," Santoro said.

The Czechs knew they were finalists on Thursday, whereas Santoro and Bhupathi had to play their quarterfinal and semifinal the next day because of rain delay.