Tursunov beats Mathieu in Open de Moselle final

Oct 5, 2008 - 5:32 PM METZ, France (Ticker) -- Dmitry Tursunov won his second title of the year Sunday with a 7-6 (8-6), 1-6, 6-4 victory over Paul-Henri Mathieu in the final of the Open de Moselle.

The fifth-seeded Tursunov, whose previous title in 2008 came at Sydney, pocketed the $85,000 first prize. The Moscow native became the first Russian to win this event.

Mathieu, seeded fourth, was aiming for his fifth career title.

Tursunov showed some mettle in the first as he came back to win the tiebreak after getting his serve broken at 6-5.

"In the second set he had a lot of chances to attack my second serve and he was successful in doing that," Tursunov said. "As I was two breaks down, Paul-Henri was playing with a lot of confidence. Today there wasn't a big difference. I can't say that I was better than him. He could have broken me as well in the third set.

"It was a good week for me. I started playing better and better with every match. The final was the most difficult match by far."

In the second set, Mathieu recaptured the momentum, breaking Tursunov three times to even the match.

However, Tursunov came up big in the final set, breaking Mathieu's serve in the fifth game to go up 3-2. The Russian eventually closed things out in 2 hours, 24 minutes.

"I couldn't do much in the final set," Mathieu said. "He broke me and I couldn't break him which cost me the match. It's tough to lose a match like that. I think that I have to improve two or three things. It's still a good week for me. I hope that I'll win a tournament soon."

In their only previous meeting at the Queen's Club last year, Tursunov also needed three sets to get past Mathieu.