{"id":12241,"date":"2016-11-07T14:58:01","date_gmt":"2016-11-07T03:58:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/?p=12241"},"modified":"2016-11-07T14:58:01","modified_gmt":"2016-11-07T03:58:01","slug":"duckworth-claims-canberra-challenger-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/news\/2016\/11\/07\/duckworth-claims-canberra-challenger-title","title":{"rendered":"Duckworth claims Canberra Challenger title"},"content":{"rendered":"

James Duckworth <\/strong>(NSW) is the 2016 Apis Canberra International <\/strong>champion, after taking out the men\u2019s singles title today, 7-5, 6-3.<\/p>\n

The 24-year-old said he was happy how the match played out, despite a tough opponent in fellow Aussie Marc Polmans<\/strong> (VIC).<\/p>\n

\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

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

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

\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

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

Fellow New South Welshman\u00a0Jordan Thompson<\/strong>\u00a0teamed up with Luke Saville\u00a0<\/strong>(SA)\u00a0to claim\u00a0the doubles title a day earlier\u00a0in straight sets, 6-2, 6-3.<\/p>\n

South Australian player and world No. 167 in doubles, Saville, said he was happy with the way he and Thompson played today and in the lead up to the final round.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really was tricky conditions all week actually, but we saved our best match till last, I thought we played really sharp doubles today,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Saville continued, \u201cJordan has been playing very well in the singles and that\u2019s been carrying over into the doubles. Matt Reid and John Patrick Smith are a really quality doubles team so it was a good win for us today.<\/p>\n

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":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5788,"featured_media":12242,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5788"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}