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Sunday, 3 February, 2002, 16:21 GMT
Sanguinetti wins first ATP Tour title
![]() Sanguinetti proved too strong in Milan
Davide Sanguinetti overturned the form book in Italy to beat Roger Federer in the final of the Milan Indoor ATP tennis tournament.
The Italian, currently ranked 87 on the ATP Tour rankings, defeated the tournament's second seed 7-6 4-6 6-1 on Sunday.
"After Australia I talked to my coach and he told me I needed to find the real Davide inside me and I needed to do it myself," said Sanguinetti. "Coming to play here in Italy puts a little more pressure on me but that was not a problem. "But playing in Italy changed something - I was more sure of myself inside and felt on equal terms with my opponents," Playing brilliant tennis in front of his home crowd, the Italian pounced on a series of errors from Federer.
The win marked the first ATP title for the 29-year-old after four finals in his career. Federer, the defending champion, looked totally off his game for much of the match despite breaking Sanguinetti's serve early in the first set. And the 20-year-old's apparent nerves finally boiled over in the seventh game when he was broken by Sanguinetti. From there the Italian easily rounded off the opening set with a 7-2 win in the tiebreak. Federer then settled in the second set, breaking twice to level the match. But, gunning for his second ATP title of the season, he fell apart in the deciding set, falling 4-1 down before Sanguinetti finally rounded off the match.
The Italian received massive vocal support throughout the match despite a recent fall-out with the Davis Cup management. He had previously refused to represent Italy in the annual tournament but reneged on that decision earlier in the week. En route to the final, he beat Spain's Juan Carlos Ferrero, Younes El Aynaoui or Morocco and France's Nicolas Escude on his way to the final. He walked away with the winner's cheque of $48,850.
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