Tennis Atlantic

Gilles Simon Gets Comeback Title in Metz, Ernests Gulbis wins 2nd ATP Title of 2013 in St. Petersburg

ATP Metz

Gilles Simon, coming off injury, took the title in Metz 6-4 6-3 over compatriot Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Tsonga fell just short of his third straight Metz title. Simon beat Kenny De Schepper, Sam Querrey, and Nicolas Mahut to reach the final, while Tsonga, who was also coming off injury, found his game against Edouard Roger-Vasselin, Tobias Kamke, and Florian Mayer. Simon didn’t drop a set all week, while Tsonga was pushed to 3 sets in both the quarter and semifinals.

Johan Brunstrom and Raven Klaasen took the doubles title over Mahut/Tsonga.

ATP St. Petersburg

Ernests Gulbis continued his quality year of tennis, capturing his second ATP title of the year (The other being the 250 in Delray Beach) 3-6 6-4 6-0 over Guillermo Garcia-Lopez. Gulbis started slow but the Spaniard Garcia-Lopez would unravel midway through the 2nd set up 6-3 4-1, and at that point, the match was over for all extensive purposes.

As a player with Russian ties this was almost a home tournament win for Gulbis, not to mention Latvia isn’t far from St. Petersburg. He beat Mikhail Elgin, Jurgen Zopp, Roberto Bautista Agut and Michal Przysiezny en route to the final. Garcia-Lopez, who has really not had that great of a year yet made a pair of ATP finals showed his streaky ability to play well. He beat Mikhail Biryukov, upset the 2 seed Mikhail Youzhny in 3 sets, then routined Denis Istomin and Joao Sousa, who surprised with quality play off of clay.

The doubles title went to David Marrero/Fernando Verdasco over Dominic Inglot/Denis Istomin.

—Steen Kirby