Holt reigns supreme in Bengaluru Open

Bengaluru: That tennis is a game of margins is an established fact -- even during a match when the opponents on court aren’t feeling or playing their best. 

But the margins, in such contests, is more about the competitor making fewer unforced errors who ends up having a slight edge to pull through a victory.

On Sunday at the Karnataka State Lawn Tennis Association, USA’s Brandon Holt’s lesser mistakes with the racquet turned out to be the deciding factor in his win over Japan’s Shintaro Mochizuki in the Bengaluru Open final and take home the winner’s cheque of $28,400, the trophy while earning 125 ATP points. 

The 26-year-old American stitched together a 6-3, 6-3 win – a scoreline that wasn’t as straight-forward as it seems. Because the energy left in Holt and Mochizuki’s tank, after a week of engaging contests in their previous four rounds, also played a major role in separating the winner from the runner-up. 

Coming off a tough semifinal three-setter against Australia’s James McCabe a little over 24 hours ago, Mochizuki began slow and struggled to get his body moving to the level he would have liked to. The right-handed Holt on the other side had his own struggles of being his active best physically. However, more battery left in Holt's reserves carried him through the first set. 

The 144th-ranked Holt held his opening game and broke right away in the second before getting another in the 6th to speed away to a 5-1 lead. The Japanese showed glimpses of the game he displayed on the previous day when he stuck in the seventh that gave him a glimmer of hope of staging a much-needed comeback. But that wasn’t to be, as Holt was smart to not let the advantage slip. 

Carrying forward that momentum, Holt once again began on a right note by breaking Mochizuki's opening game in the second set. With even routine baseline shots and his touch at the net missing, all Mochizuki could do was hope for a miracle. 

For a brief moment in the 4th game, the younger competitor of the two appeared to have regained his abandoned feel when he broke for the second time in the match to decrease the gap to 1-3. That positive game turned out to be his last and final surge before Holt broke in the ninth to put an end to the encounter between two tired bodies. 

“We practiced when I landed here in India a few weeks ago,” started Holt during the post-match presentation ceremony under the floodlit centre court. 

“And we ended it by going against each other in a final today. You are a great guy and I’m sure there is a lot awaiting for you in the season. So all the best,” congratulated the Pune ATP Challenger runner-up to Mochizuki. 

Result: Singles: Final (prefix denotes seeding): 3-Brandon Holt (USA) bt 7-Shintaro Mochizuki (Jpn) 6-3, 6-3.