Copyright © 2016. No duplication is permitted without permission from Bob Larson Tennis.

BRD Nastase Tiriac Trophy
Bucharest, Romania

RESULTS – MONDAY, 25 APRIL 2016

Singles – Final
F. Verdasco (ESP) d L. Pouille (FRA) 63 62

Doubles – Final
[1] F. Mergea (ROU) / H. Tecau (ROU) d C. Guccione (AUS) / A. Sa (BRA) 75 64

VERDASCO WINS TITLE; MERGEA/TECAU DELIGHT ROMANIAN SUPPORT

– Fernando Verdasco captured his first ATP World Tour title since April 2014 at Houston (d. Almagro). He is now 7-13 lifetime in ATP World Tour finals.
– First-time finalist Lucas Pouille had been trying to become first French winner since Gilles Simon in 2012.
– It was the first title match to be carried over to a Monday since 5 October 2015, when Tomas Berdych overcame Guillermo Garcia-Lopez for the Shenzhen title.
– Horia Tecau and Florin Mergea were playing together at an ATP World Tour tournament for the first time since Bucharest 2008.
– Tecau claimed the 300th match win of his career and also his fourth title at the event, including with Robert Lindstedt in 2012, Max Mirnyi in 2013 and Jean-Julien Rojer in 2014.
– Mergea is now 6-6 lifetime in ATP World Tour finals, while Tecau improves to 28-16 overall.
– Tecau has won 16 straight matches in Bucharest since his last loss in the 2011 quarter-finals with Robert Lindstedt.

What The Players Said

Verdasco: “I’m very happy because I won this trophy. It is a long time since I was in this position, to win a tournament or to play in a final.

“It’s not easy to wait a day to play. It wasn’t stressful, but hard. When it rains you have to be ready to play at every moment, especially if it’s a final, not first round. I wanted to play, no matter what. We did play, even if the last game it was complicated when it started raining again. I’m glad that all ended there.”

Pouille: “It was not easy to play my first final in these conditions. We had to wait for a long time. We didn’t know when we would play. However, it was the same conditions for both players and Fernando just played better than me today. I had some break points in the first set, it was close and very intense from the beginning. Then I started the second set poorly and Fernando played some really good tennis. He didn’t give me many points. Congratulations to him. As far as I am concerned, despite the loss, it was a positive week and I hope to keep on improving in the coming weeks.”

Mergea: “It wasn’t an easy week for us, but we wanted to play together here. We are happy with the title. Now we have more confidence in ourselves, in our game. It’s a first step towards our goal, which is a medal at the Olympics in Rio.”

Tecau: “We’ve done everything to be prepared each day to play, when the weather allowed it. We waited on Sunday, we played a set, and today we woke up very early, like 6:00 a.m., to be here and see what happens. This title, for us, is a dream come true. Something we thought of since we were children. We are happy and we thank our team and the people who came to support us all week, despite the rain.”

Copyright © 2016. No duplication is permitted without permission from Bob Larson Tennis.