ATP Tour

Griekspoor rallies past Struff for Brussels crown

Tallon Griekspoor capped a memorable week at the BNP Paribas Fortis European Open on Sunday, when he battled from a set down for the third consecutive match to capture the crown at the ATP 250 event.

The 30-year-old roared back to earn a 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory against Jan-Lennard Struff for his first trophy this season, digging deep once again to secure a comeback win in Brussels. The No. 60 player in the PIF ATP Rankings, Griekspoor also rallied to upset second seed Jiri Lehecka in the quarter-finals and third seed Francisco Cerundolo in the semi-finals.

"Another big fight. Very, very challenging match again," Griekspoor said following his triumph. "We have played a couple of times before and all of them were absolute fights, which could have gone either way.

"I don't know how it went my way [today]. I just tried to stay in there... found some good tennis towards the end of the match."

After dropping the opening set, Griekspoor raised his intensity behind his serve in the second set, in which he faced no break points. The 30-year-old continued to serve with conviction in the third set before earning a crucial break at 4-4, capitalising on a nervy service game from the German before serving out the win.

While withstanding the challenge posed by Struff’s powerful serve, Griekspoor’s own delivery proved decisive. The Dutchman won 84 per cent (47/56) of the points behind his first serves, according to Infosys ATP Stats, and also struck 19 aces to Struff’s 17.

With his two-hour, two-minute victory, Griekspoor improved to 4-0 in his Lexus ATP Head2Head series with the German and captured his fourth ATP Tour crown and first since clinching the Mallorca trophy last June.

The 36-year-old Struff was seeking his second ATP Tour crown and aiming to become the second-oldest ATP Tour champion this year behind Novak Djokovic, who triumphed in Beijing earlier this month. Despite falling short in the final, the German had an eventful week in Brussels, where he upset sixth-seeded Belgian Zizou Bergs in the quarter-finals and top seed Arthur Fils in the semi-finals before falling to Griekspoor.