Sydney\u2019s Chris O\u2019Connell has dispatched fellow local Max Purcell in under an hour to take the inaugural title at the Blacktown Tennis International. It was a clinical display from the world No.265 as he backed up an impressive week at home to win 6-2 6-2.<\/p>\n
\u201cI played some good tennis this week,\u201d the top seed said. \u201cThe conditions really suited me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was pretty cool to play Max in the final as well,\u201d he added. \u201cHe\u2019s a good mate and he lives just down the road from me. He\u2019s had an awesome year and he\u2019s a really up-and coming junior, so I had to bring my A-game.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Connell, 22, said he enjoyed playing in his hometown. \u201cIt didn\u2019t really feel like I was in a tournament,\u201d he said. \u201cI was cruising back home after matches and sitting around the pool or going to the beach. It was a really good environment to play in.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy whole family was out there for the final and a couple of my mates as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both Blacktown finalists have achieved breakthrough years in 2016 with Purcell winning an ATP Challenger title in Korea and O\u2019Connell reaching a semifinal in Romania. O\u2019Connell also took ITF Futures titles in Cairns and Port Pirie, adding to the two he collected in Serbia.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe big goal of mine this year was just to play match after match,\u201d O\u2019Connell said. \u201cI think I\u2019ve played about 80 this year in around 25 tournaments. I get a bit out of playing every single one whether its tactically or mentally in how to deal with situations.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Connell whipped through his matches in Blacktown with ease aside from a semifinal encounter with India\u2019s Sumit Nagal, the No.3 seed, where he held earlier match points before being forced into a deciding set tiebreaker.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did feel pretty comfortable,\u201d he said of the match. \u201cBut after the match points it was a bit tough to come back. Luckily, I managed to turn it around and play a really good tiebreak.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Connell will now head into a training block before competing in the Australian Open Wildcard Play-Off in mid-December.<\/p>\n
Third seeds Steven de Waard and American Jarmere Jenkins claimed the Blacktown doubles title on Saturday with a 6-4 6-2 victory over Indian first seeds Nagal and Sriram Bilaji.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chris O’Connell has defeated fellow Sydney local Max Purcell in the Blacktown final, earning his fifth ITF Futures title of 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5788,"featured_media":12286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12285","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\/12285","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=12285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/nsw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}