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LONDON - Andy Roddick staged a great escape to win his fourth Queen's Club trophy in five years with a dramatic 4-6 7-6 7-6 win over France's Nicolas Mahut on Monday (NZ time).
The American second seed survived a match point deep in the second set tiebreak to
wreck Mahut's hopes of landing a debut title.
After winning the most hotly contested final in the event's 29-edition history, Roddick joined Lleyton Hewitt, Boris Becker and John McEnroe as a four-times champion in west London.
More importantly for Roddick, it allowed him to surpass the achievement of his coach Jimmy Connors, who triumphed three times here.
"Nicolas continually outplayed me the whole match and I was just trying to hang around and keep fighting and got a little lucky there," Roddick told the crowd after winning his first title of the season.
"This was by far the toughest match I've ever played here and I feel pretty lucky to be standing in the winner's circle so hopefully I can carry the luck over to Wimbledon."
Looking over to Connors in the stands, he joked: "I had to win this one because for the only time in any place where we go, I've won this four times and you've only won it three. That doesn't happen very often and I don't know if I'll get to say it again."
Mahut made his ranking of 106 look like a mathematical error as he outwitted Roddick in the opening set with his acrobatic tactics in front of the net.
The 25-year-old had claimed four seeded scalps en route to the final and as the clock ticked towards the 90-minute mark, he came within one point of adding Roddick to his list of victims -- which included top seed Rafael Nadal.
But the American stood his ground at 7-6 down in the second set tiebreak and Mahut saw his chance of victory disappear as he slapped the ball into the net.
The world number five restored order by pocketing the tiebreak 9-7 and despite not finding a way to break the Mahut serve in the entire match, he picked up the top prize after two hours 17 minutes of riveting action by firing his 24th ace to win the final set tiebreak 7-2.
"I will remember this week forever," said Mahut, who was bidding to become the first Frenchman to win the title.
"I just needed one more point to make it a real dream."
- REUTERS