Novak Djokovic beat American Mardy Fish 6-2, 3-6, 6-4 on Sunday for the Montreal title, becoming the first man to win five ATP Masters 1000 tournaments in the same season.
Djokovic, who was crowned world number one after winning Wimbledon, has now claimed his ninth title of the season, in which he has won 53 of 54 matches played.
He has previously taken 2011 Masters honours at Indian Wells, Miami, Madrid and Rome. Djokovic came through on his fourth match point after Fish saved three on errors from the Serb, also the Canadian champion in 2007. A service winner after two hours, 23 minutes finally earned the victory.
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“It was a close match, for sure. A couple of points, one good return game in the third set, decided the winner,” said Djokovic.
“But it’s a final. You can somehow expect that the players are evenly matched, and they both want to win the title badly. I knew that I had to fight for it. Up to the last moment, you didn’t really know who is going to win, but I believed I could do it. This was a big satisfaction.” Fish was playing in his third straight final of the summer after winning Atlanta and playing the Los Angeles final.
Djokovic now stands 7-0 over Fish, the sixth seed.
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“I’m not getting tired of this (victories), it was a pleasure playing against Mardy. My team and I have done it again,” said Djokovic, who said tht he dealt with a small shoulder problem all week but is not concrned for next week’s event in Cinicnnati, Ohio.
“It’s so great to win another title. We played a great match. I had a few lucky points in the third set to break.” Djokovic also won a title in his first event since becoming the top-ranked player, duplicating the feat of Pete Sampras from 1993 in Hong Kong.
Djokovic has now won 27 of his 40 career finals. Fish was the only player this week to take a set from the Serb who finished with four aces and three breaks of serve.
“It was another great effort from Novak. I’m getting a bit tired of this, though,” Fish joked after another career defeat by the Serb.
He was disappointed to lose: “This loss is really hard to take, just so much energy mentally and physically goes into going that far. I wanted it so badly -- it hurts.
“I put myself in a lot of positions to have chances, I just didn’t execute on the big points,” Fish said. “There’s a reason why he’s won so many matches this year. He’s got to be leading the tour in break points saved, I’m sure, among other things. Those are huge.
Both players now travel to Cincinnati for next week’s Masters, the last major tune-up before the start of the US Open on August 29.