JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, Dec 21 (Reuters) \u2013 American Learner Tien overpowered Belgian opponent Alexander Blockx 4-3(4) 4-2 4-1 to win the Next Gen ATP Finals on Sunday, the year-ending exhibition tournament between \u200dthe eight highest-ranked players on the tour aged 20 and under.<\/p>\n
The tournament uses a modified format, where a player needs to win four games to clinch a set, and winning one point at deuce is enough to take the game.<\/p>\n
Tien, who won his first trophy on the tour at the Moselle \u200cOpen last month, held his nerve and made only \u200c12 unforced errors while Blockx had 23, as the American won the match in just under an hour.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really happy. I knew it was going to be a tough match. I don\u2019t think (Blockx) missed a serve for the first \u200bset-and-a-half. He\u2019s been playing great in these conditions all week,\u201d said Tien, who lost last year;s\u00a0final to Joao Fonseca.<\/p>\n
Blockx, who served seven \u200daces while his opponent had only one, \u200bmade his intentions clear from the start, attacking the \u200bleft-handed Tien\u2019s backhand with a fast serve and running up to the net \u200dto apply pressure.<\/p>\n
Tien, ranked 28th in the world, pushed Blockx back with a well-placed lob before winning the point with a drive volley and although\u00a0Blockx, ranked 116th, saved a break point and pushed the first set into a tiebreaker, top seed Tien outplayed his fellow 20-year-old.<\/p>\n
Tien \u200dwon the second set with a decisive break, using his powerful forehand to push Blockx back until the under-pressure Belgian second seed hit over the \u200dbaseline.<\/p>\n
The American, who has \u200dclinched five victories over top-10 ranked players this \u200byear including a straight-sets win over world number two \u200bAlexander Zverev \u2060in February, got another break in the third \u200cset to go 3-1 up, leaving Blockx with little chance of fighting back.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat a year you\u2019ve had,\u201d Blockx told Tien at the trophy presentation ceremony. \u201cThere are not a lot of days I feel helpless on court but today was one of them. You\u2019re just too good.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Chiranjit Ojha in Bengaluru. editing \u2060by Ed Osmond)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, Dec 21 (Reuters) \u2013 American Learner Tien overpowered Belgian opponent Alexander Blockx 4-3(4) 4-2 4-1…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-361013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}