Fifth-seeded Russian Marat Safin survived an attempted Center Court mugging as he surpassed his compatriot Mikhail Youzhny 7-6 (7-4), 7-5 to lift his long-waited first title of the year in Beijing Sunday.

The match started with Mikhail Youzhny breaking Marat Safin in the opening game with the bounce and net chords falling in his favor to appall the fifth seed.

High-spirited Youzhny got a quick pace in the first set and seemed can do anything with accurate landing points and wonderful saves, but Safin soon recovered from one game down to blast powerful serve and heavy hitting, which proved too strong for Youzhny, who was kept running a lot to suffer an energy draining.

With the diminish of power, Youzhny's unforced errors came up. Safin took the chance to return a break in game eight after 2 deuces to level the score 4-4 and compelled a tiebreaker. Safin waked up his big serve by firing four consecutive aces out of total nine to collect his first four points, ending the tiebreaker 7-4.

Safin

The second set also proved to be a rock-versus-stone collision with both players holding their serves until Safin broke in game eleven taking the advantage of Youzhny's double faults to pack his first title the year.

Safin walked around the court to express thanks for the crowd's thunderous applause holding the trophy.

"My serve was great. My serve helped me to win the first set. Mikhail was a tough player, but my serve and baseline help me a lot," said Safin. "It was two years for my last title. It's great feeling to win again today and it won't be the last hopefully. I hope to come here next year,"

"I'm surprised the crowd is so kind to me. The title surely help me to reach the Masters Cup and it won't be my last title in China," the Russian No. 1 added.

Youzhny

The loss did not like to bother Youzhny, who attended the press conference with full smile. The runner-up became the first person to say congratulations to Safin.

"If you want to beat a player like Marat, you can not play only baseline. You need to play slide, volley and everything you can control," said the 32-ranked Youzhny. "Marat played better than me. His serve was good. He could play great serve, good baseline and also volley."

"If I could play more finals, I think it will do good to me. I didn't feel regret for the loss, I know I was close to him. I played good today, but it's not my best," added Youzhny.

Safin, the former world number one and 2000 US Open winner, lifted his last title in November 2002. He has had a lackluster recovery following an injury-plagued season in 2003, falling in the first round of US Open.

After beating Andy Roddick and Andre Agassi on his way to the Australian Open final, Safin was looking to enjoy a successful year, but after reaching the semi-final at the Monte Carlo Masters, his form suffered a slide.

(Xinhua News Agency September 20, 2004)