{"id":9899,"date":"2016-11-06T15:48:03","date_gmt":"2016-11-06T04:48:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/?p=9899"},"modified":"2016-11-06T15:48:03","modified_gmt":"2016-11-06T04:48:03","slug":"james-duckworth-takes-2016-crown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/news\/2016\/11\/06\/james-duckworth-takes-2016-crown","title":{"rendered":"James Duckworth takes 2016 crown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>James Duckworth <\/strong>(NSW) is the <strong>2016 Apis Canberra International <\/strong>champion, after taking out the men\u2019s singles title today, 7-5, 6-3.<\/p>\n<p>The 24-year-old said he was happy how the match played out, despite a tough opponent in fellow Aussie <strong>Marc Polmans<\/strong> (VIC).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMarc\u2019s a really good competitor and he made me fight for every point,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m thrilled to get the win.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Duckworth continued, \u201cHe\u2019s [Polmans] renowned for his fighting qualities and that\u2019s how he got to the final. Every match he\u2019s just turned up, and then battled and I knew he was going to be like that today, so I knew I had to play well to win.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Despite a difficult year with four months off injured, Duckworth has worked hard to get back into form, now with two ATP Challenger titles to his name.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was out for four months and my ranking dropped quite a bit,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s been tough to try and get my ranking back up and I feel like I\u2019m playing some good tennis. I\u2019m 99 per cent healthy and I think that\u2019s the main thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After today\u2019s match, Duckworth will move to 130 in the world. Polmans started 2016 as 843 in the world yet after today\u2019s match, the highest level of his career-to-date, Polmans will move to world No. 212.<\/p>\n<p>Prior to the men\u2019s match, number one seed <strong>Risa Ozaki<\/strong> (JPN) defeated qualifier <strong>Georgia Brescia<\/strong> (ITA) 6-4, 6-4 in 1 hour and 43 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>World No. 103, this is the second consecutive $50,000 Challenger title for Ozaki, having claimed\u00a0The Bendigo International in October 2016.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cToday was a tough match because she [Brescia] played well,\u201d she said. \u201cBut today, I could focus during the match\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>A similar story to Polmans, today\u2019s final was the highest level of Brescia\u2019s career-to-date. Current world No. 433, she has high hopes of returning to Canberra for the tournament again in 2017.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s has been a great week really, the best of my career, and I hope to come back next year\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Leading into the final, Ozaki dealt with ongoing blustery Canberra conditions. However she has appreciated her time in the capital, next heading to play in Toyko.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI love Canberra, because it is a nice town, but it is difficult to play here as it\u2019s a bit windy. But I love Canberra.<\/p>\n<p>The finals day was a fitting finale for an event that has over the past week given local tennis fans the opportunity to attend and watch some of the world\u2019s best from across the globe compete for USD$100,000 in prize money and valuable world ranking points.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>James Duckworth (NSW) is the 2016 Apis Canberra International champion, after taking out the men\u2019s singles title today, 7-5, 6-3. The 24-year-old said he was happy how the match played out, despite a tough opponent in fellow Aussie Marc Polmans (VIC). \u201cMarc\u2019s a really good competitor and he made me fight for every point,\u201d he [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5993,"featured_media":9901,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5993"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/act\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}