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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Sunday, January 10, 2010

Tennis: Cilic retains Chennai Open title


Associated Press

CHENNAI, India — Marin Cilic of Croatia retained the Chennai Open title on Sunday, defeating Stanislas Wawrinka 7-6 (2), 7-6 (3) in the final for his first victory in five matches against the Swiss player.

The second-seeded Cilic repeated his feat of winning the WTA Tour's season-opening event for the second successive year.

"It's been a good start to the year, winning back-to-back Chennai Open titles will surely boost my confidence," Cilic said. "This is an ideal preparation for the Australian Open."

Cilic matched Spaniard Carlos Moya's feat of winning successive titles here in 2004 and 2005.

"I'm proud to have won two titles here," Cilic said. "It wasn't easy out there today, I had to work hard for victory."

The third-seeded Wawrinka said Cilic deserved the victory.

"I missed a chance to win a title today, because Marin was playing so well," the Swiss said. "... I needed to push him a bit more, and be more aggressive during the tiebreaks."

The second-seeded Spanish pair of Marcel Granollers and Santiago Ventura won the doubles title, defeating Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia and Yen-Hsun Lu of Taiwan 7-5, 6-2 in the final.