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Return Winners: the 2012 Delray Beach Open final

Kevin Anderson and Marinko Matosevic squared off in the championship match.

ByVan Sias

Published Feb 24, 2019

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An unexpected final took place between Kevin Anderson and Marinko Matosevic at the Delray Beach, Fla., tournament in 2012.

After a breakthrough 2011, which saw him win his first career title, Kevin Anderson’s 2012 campaign got off to a decent start with a third-round showing at the Australian Open and a quarterfinal appearance in San Jose.

Entering the Delray Beach International Championships as the seventh seed, South Africa’s top player managed to better his quarterfinal run from the year prior and reach the championship match. Along the way, he defeated Andy Roddick in the quarterfinals and his former college rival John Isner in the semis. Those wins propelled him to a bout with an unseeded foe: Marinko Matosevic, who came through the qualifying rounds to reach his first career title tilt.

From the beginning, it wasn’t readily apparent who would be able to gain an early foothold in the match: Neither player was able to hold serve through the first five games. Finally, while up 3-2, Anderson held, and was able to maintain that advantage to eventually take the opener 6-4.

In the second set, Matosevic—who entered the final never having won consecutive matches in an ATP Tour event—was feeling the pressure early on. Anderson recorded multiple break points against the Australian’s serve, but Matosevic managed to fend them off and pushed the set into a tiebreak. Despite being unable to crack the match open, Anderson kept up the intensity and went up 4-0 in the breaker. Serving down multiple match points at 2-6, Matosevic hit a forehand into the net, enabling Anderson to clinch his second career title.

2

For both of his career titles, Anderson defeated an unseeded player in the final. In 2011 in South Africa, he beat Somdev Devvarman in the championship match.

3

Anderson became the third man to win the tournament who played college tennis after the first champion, Todd Martin (Northwestern) in 1993 and Davide Sanguinetti (UCLA) in 2002.

12

Matosevic entered the final on a 12-match winning streak, having captured a Challenger in his prior tournament, going through three rounds of qualifying in Delray Beach and winning four main-draw matches.

Follow Van on Twitter: @Van_Sias