Ryan Sweeting

American wild card Ryan Sweeting prevailed against Japanese No. 6 seed Kei Nishikori 6-4, 7-6(3) Sunday at the US Men's Clay Court Championship in Houston to claim his first ATP World Tour title. ATPWorldTour.com caught up with the new champion following his victory.

Coming into this week, you had a career-record of 1-5 on clay in ATP World Tour play. What turned it around this week for you?
I grew up on clay. I’ve always felt comfortable on clay and I think I just enjoy playing here in Houston. I had fun, this is a great tournament, and I’ve been playing well this year so coming into the tournament I was confident. I think winning matches earlier in the tournament helped me.

Did you ever dream of winning an ATP World Tour singles title as a junior, and let alone having it come on clay?
Absolutely. I think that’s every young player’s dream, to win ATP tournaments and get their ranking as high as possible. This is the road that needs to be taken to do that, so it’s definitely a goal of mine that I’ve reached. I grew up on clay in the Bahamas and practiced a lot on clay as a junior. I’ve always liked clay. There aren’t too many tournaments in the States on clay, so I never really had a chance to play on it, but I feel comfortable on it.

Coming into this week you led the tour in qualifying five times this year. How gratifying is it to take advantage of the wild card you received here?
It’s always nice to get a wild card into a tournament. Qualifying into ATP tournaments and the Slams and the Masters is pretty hard to do and you go into your first round already a little fatigued, so to have the opportunity to get directly in definitely helped me.

Talk about the marathon 10th game, 18 minutes, in the second set. You saved three set points.
That game was crucial for me, obviously if I lost that game he would’ve won the set, and we would probably still be playing right now. But I just stayed calm on the set points he had and tried to get my first serve in and stayed aggressive on those important points.

You were broken nine times in the first three matches and only broken once in the last two. After the quarters, Wayne Bryan gave you a few serving tips. Anything that kind of turned it around or tell you that helped you?
I spent a little time with Wayne on the practice courts and he broke down my serve a little bit, gave me a few pointers. I definitely thought about that going into my semi-final and final match. I definitely thought I served the best in the semis and the final.

Any tips he gave you?
Little things. Don’t let the toss drift too far behind me and get the ball out in front. Mostly about my toss.

You have two come-from-behind wins in the second round against Sam Querrey and the quarters against Teymuraz Gabashvili, then straight sets in your last two matches. Did those two come-from-behind wins give you the confidence to think you could win this thing?
I lost the first set against Querrey and Gabashvili, and I spoke to Chuck Adams about it and I sort of told him I was starting off a little slow, lackadaisical, so he tried to get me fired up right when the match started because I can’t afford to be throwing first sets away. That’s not a very good idea. So it worked in the semis and the final. I stayed focused from the beginning and I knew how important the first set was, especially against [Ivo] Karlovic. He was a little tired, so it was very important for me.

What were you the happy with the most this week, putting together your five wins to win your first ATP World Tour title?
I think just handling the moment well. I’m very happy I didn’t let the pressure of winning my first title interfere with my play. I thought I played tennis the normal way I would and didn’t let the stage pressure me.

Now with your first title, what are some of your other goals for the rest of the season?
One of my goals earlier in the season was being in the Top 100, and now I’m in the Top 75. I want to consolidate that, be comfortably and consistenly moving up into the Top 50 and just keep going.

With being in the Top 75 in this coming week, is there an added goal at the end of the year now that you’re at where are now?
I’m getting a lot of confidence, a lot of experience playing good players. I think my biggest goal is to do well in Grand Slams. I want to go far and those are the biggest stages. A tennis player’s dream is to do well in Grand Slams and I think I’m feeling comfortable enough now on bigger stages and against better players to do.

Lastly, whose been the biggest influence in your career to get where you are today?
I’d guess I have to say my mom. She supported me from day one and she’s always believed in me and always given me the means to play tennis and travel the world. Without her it’d be impossible. She’s always been my No. 1 fan.

In his debut appearance in an ATP World Tour final, American wild card Ryan Sweeting prevailed against Japanese No. 6 seed Kei Nishikori 6-4, 7-6(3) Sunday in Houston to clinch the title at the US Men's Clay Court Championship.

In the youngest tour-level final this season, the 23-year-old Sweeting broke the 21-year-old Nishikori late in the first set and faced down three set points in the 10th game of the second set before clinching the victory on his first of three match points in the tie-break.

“That game was very crucial,” Sweeting said of holding at 5-all. “It was definitely an important hold for me. I think it was a 20-minute long game. It definitely wore me out a little bit. I knew that I wanted to try and win the second set, obviously, to win the match, but it was a good hold and I felt that it gave me a little bit of momentum going into the rest of the set. It sort of hit him a little harder that he didn’t get the break – he had a lot of break points – but I just fought hard today.”

Sweeting became the first U.S. champion at this ATP World Tour 250 tournament since Mardy Fish in 2006 after American players finished runners-up each of the past three years. He also became the fifth first-time winner on the ATP World Tour this season, following Pablo Andujar’s victory at the Grand Prix Hassan II earlier Sunday.

“I’m most happy about the way I performed under pressure,” he said. “It was my first final and I felt I stayed calm, I stayed focused. I didn’t let the moment get to me and nerves get to me, which has happened to me in the past before, so I felt that I competed well at an important time in my career.”

World No. 93 Sweeting, who is projected to climb to No. 71 after earning 250 South African Airways 2011 ATP Rankings points this week, improved to a 10-6 season record. He had reached one tour-level quarter-final prior to this week, resulting in a loss to Nishikori in Delray Beach this past February.

En route to the final, he had upset 2010 finalist and No. 2 seed Sam Querrey in the second round and past champion Ivo Karlovic in the semi-finals.

American Ryan Sweeting advanced to his first ATP World Tour final after stopping the run of 6’ 10” Croatian Ivo Karlovic in the semi-finals Saturday. Sweeting won 7-6(3), 6-3 to reach the title match.

World No. 93 Sweeting withstood 12 aces from former champion Karlovic, who this year began his journey in the qualifying rounds and on Friday toiled for more than three hours to take out fellow big-serving giant John Isner.

“I feel great here in Houston,” Sweeting said. “Ivo had a three hour match and was in a little bit of pain out here today. I knew he'd be serving big, but you can’t let that bother you. You’ve just got to take care of your own serve. It’s good to get to my first final here in the States and here in Houston."

American wild card Ryan Sweeting reached his first ATP World Tour semi-final after he defeated Teymuraz Gabashvili of Russia 3-6, 6-3, 6-1 in one hour and 41 minutes.

World No. 93 Sweeting, who dropped one point on serve in the deciding set, converted five of seven break point opportunities overall to improve to an 8-6 match record on the season.

Wild card Ryan Sweeting upset fellow American Sam Querrey for a second time this season, defeating the No. 2 seed and 2010 Houston finalist 3-6, 7-6(5), 6-3 in a match that featured 11 breaks of serve.

“He was definitely on the offensive in the last game,” said Sweeting, who fought off six break points in the final game and 18 of 24 overall. “I was basically hitting second serves as first serves and he was running around every serve, hitting his forehand and I was on the defense right away, except for the last deuce point where I took my backhand up the line for a winner and he missed that volley right on top of the net on game point. I just got lucky there.”

The 93rd-ranked Sweeting had defeated Querrey in Delray Beach this past February to reach his first tour-level quarter-final.

He next meets Russian Teymuraz Gabashvili, who booked his place in the Houston quarter-finals earlier in the day with a 7-6(4), 6-3 win over eighth-seeded Bulgarian teenager Grigor Dimitrov.

In a first-round match between two Americans, wild card Ryan Sweeting defeated qualifier Tim Smyczek 6-2, 6-2. Sweeting next confronts second-seeded countryman and 2010 finalist Sam Querrey, whom he defeated earlier this year in Delray Beach.

Sweeting got a last WC for Houston.