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Delpo Defends Stockholm Title

Oct 23rd 2017
Juan Martin Del Potro

Juan Martin Del Potro defeated Grigor Dimitrov 6-4, 6-2

- Fourth seed Juan Martin del Potro defended his Stockholm title, defeating top seed and 2013 champion Grigor Dimitrov. It is the Argentine’s first title since he lifted the trophy in Sweden last year.
- Not only did del Potro capture his 20th ATP World Tour title, but he launched himself into contention in the Emirates ATP Race To London. The 29-year-old will move up to 14th in the Race with 2,135  points, 470 points behind Pablo Carreno Busta, who currently occupies the final qualifying spot.
- The Argentine extended his FedEx ATP Head2Head series lead against Dimitrov to 6-2.
- It was still a strong effort for Dimitrov in Stockholm. Dimitrov is fifth in the Race standings, next in line to qualify for the Nitto ATP Finals, to be held 12-19 November at The O2 in London, with 3,560  points.
- Dimitrov is looking to make his debut at the prestigious tournament.
- Oliver Marach and Mate Pavic picked up crucial points in the Emirates ATP Doubles Race To London with their first ATP World Tour team title.
- The Austrian/Croatian pairing had fallen in their three prior finals, all this season and all on grass: Stuttgart (l. to Murray/Soares), Antalya (l. to Lindstedt/Qureshi) and Wimbledon (l. to Kubot/Melo).
- Marach/Pavic will gain 100 more points in the London standings, pushing them to within 100 of eighth-placed Raven Klaasen and Rajeev Ram, who hold the lone remaining qualification spot. 

WHAT THE PLAYERS SAID
Del Potro

“I played the best match of the week against Grigor today… It’s amazing to come back and hold this big trophy. And hopefully I can come next year as well. I love to be in Stockholm. I like the city a lot. I like the Swedish people and you treated me very, very good this week and I would like to thank everyone.”

β€œIn the final you must play perfect and I played a very good match.”

Dimitrov
“I couldn’t have lost to a better gentleman on and off the court. Juan, congrats…you’ve been playing great the whole year, quite a few battles and wishing you the best of luck for the rest of the season… Unfortunately I couldn’t bring a lot more fight today. But again, Juan totally deserved it.”

Marach
“It was a high-level doubles match. They played great. We had to come up with some very good shots. Luck was on our side in the second and in the [Match] Tie-break. But doubles sometimes it's just about two or three points and today we were the luckier ones.”

Pavic
“We've played four [finals]… and finally we won it.”