Sat Jan 12 09:40:02 2008

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Tursunov captures Sydney crown

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Sydney, Australia (Sports Network) - Dmitry Tursunov of Russia topped Australian wild card Chris Guccione in straight sets to capture the Medibank International tennis tournament.

Tursunov earned a 7-6 (7-3), 7-6 (7-4) triumph for his fourth career ATP singles crown. He was a two-time winner in 2007.

Guccione was an ATP finalist for the second time, having previously lost to Novak Djokovic in last year's Adelaide title match.

There were no break points during Saturday's match and Guccione actually won one more point than Tursunov, but the Russian was better in the tiebreakers.

"He played better tiebreakers than me in the end," said Guccione. "At the end he came up with two great returns and a good pass. So he just played a little bit more solid and won a couple return points in the tiebreaks."

Tursunov will try to carry his success into next week's Australian Open, where he has never advanced past the third round. A first-round encounter with Belgium's Xavier Malisse awaits.

"What I've been doing really well is preparing for my matches and going out with a certain plan of what I want to achieve or what I want to do on the court," said Tursunov. "I think that has been helping me to do well, so I'm hoping that I'm going to be able to do that as well in Melbourne."

Guccione will face Korea's Hyung-Taik Lee in the first round of the Aussie Open next week. The Melbourne native has never won a match in the main draw in three previous tries at his hometown event.