At the KSLTA Tennis Stadium here on Sunday, Italy’s Stefano Napolitano defeated South Korea’s Seongchan Hong after trailing a set to win the Bengaluru Open. Napolitano, a seventh seed who won his last ATP Challenger title back in 2016, won 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 in two hours and twenty-three minutes, earning $18230 (roughly Rs 15 lakh) in prize money. In addition, the title victory gave him 100 ranking points. Napolitano, who defeated home favorite Sumit Nagal in the semifinals and former world no. 25 Vasek Pospisil of Canada in the second round, struggled with his first serve in the opening set. As a result, he wasn’t really able to capitalize.
But he became more consistent as the match progressed and managed to break his opponent once to force the decider.
With the momentum now in his favour, Napolitano broke Hong in the very first game to wrest the advantage. The South Korean stayed in the set by staving off his opponent on his next three service games.
However, Napolitano ended Hong’s resistance in the ninth game of the set by hitting an inside-out forehand winner for the first point and completed the triumph with a backhand winner before falling down on his back in celebration.
Bengaluru Open was organised by the Karnataka State Lawn Tennis Association (KSLTA).
