France's Corentin Moutet, the second-seed, beat Andrew Harris of Australia 6-3, 6-3 in the singles final Sunday to win the title in Chennai Open ATP Challenger tennis tournament here.
The Frenchman played confidently to dash the hopes of Harris, the conqueror of top-seeded Prajnesh Gunneswaran on Saturday.
The 19-year old left-hander displayed a range of exquisite shots, tremendous agility and exemplary court-craft in subduing Harris, a former junior doubles champion at the French Open and Wimbledon.
Harris coming into the final on the back of some tough matches, struggled to find his form particularly on his ground strokes.
His single-hand backhand did not find its target often enough.
Moutet returned with a great degree of confidence and precision and broke Harris's serve twice in the first set to win it 6-3.
Also Read
In the second set, the Frenchman broke Harris twice and jumped to a 4-0 lead.
The Australian broke back in the next game with some powerful returns and then held serve to reduce the margin to 2-4.
In the next game, Moutet had his rival on the run and went upo 5-2 after an interesting rally.
Harris saved a match point and held to reduce the lead to 3-5.
The second-seeded Frenchman went up 40-0 in the ninth game and lost two match points before closing out the set and match.
Moutet said he was happy to have won the tournament on his first visit to India.
"I tried to do my best always and that is what I will do. I have to continue to improve many aspects of my game and I have no control over the ranking.
If I do my best, I will always go ahead," the French player, ranked 145 coming into the Chennai Open said.
It was the second Challenger title for Moutet, who received USD 7,200 and 80 ATP points, while Andrew received USD 4,240 and 48 ATP points.
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content