Guillermo Garcia-Lopez is back to his old winning ways…
The 30-year-old Spanish tennis player claimed his first title in nearly four years after rallying to defeat his compatriot Marcel Granollers at the Grand Prix Hassan II on Sunday.
After losing the first set, Garcia-Lopez stormed back to take the next two sets in the all-Spanish final on the clay court in Casablanca, Morocco. The final score: 5-7, 6-4, 6-3.
Garcia-Lopez’s previous title was on indoor hard courts in Bangkok in 2010, and he’d lost his matched in the previous two finals in which he competed — last year on clay at Bucharest, Romania and on indoor hard courts at St. Petersburg, Russia.
Granollers, who was hoping to win his fifth career title, dropped his serve five times and was less consistent. He won only 60 percent of his first-serve points compared to 76 percent for Garcia-Lopez, who won their only previous meeting in the second round of the same tournament in 2010.
Garcia-Lopez continued the recent dominance of his countrymen at the tournament, becoming the fourth different Spaniard to win in the past six years after Tommy Robredo (2013), Pablo Andujar (2011 and 2012) and former French Open champion Juan Carlos Ferrero (2009).
This is the third singles title of Garcia-Lopez’s career.