Pakistan's Aisam Qureshi captured his first ATP Challenger title after sailing past Korea's An Jae Sung in straight sets at DLTA courts in New Delhi on Saturday.
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Sixth seeded Qureshi, favourite to win the title after toppling top seed Ivo Minar in the quarter-finals, defeated An 7-5, 6-4 in an hour and 20 minutes to take home a prize money of USD 7,200 and 55 valuable ATP points.
The 27-year-old, who made it to the Wimbledon second round this year, has enjoyed his best season rising to 145 in the charts and was clearly several notches above the rest of the field in New Delhi.
The Pakistan number one had made it to the final of Nottingham event this year; his only final appearance.
"I learnt from my mistakes that I made in that final and I am happy to win my first Challenger title here. Delhi has been very Good for me. I have won five out of seven tournaments I played here," Qureshi said later.
Though the big-serving Qureshi failed to fire aces at will in the final, his serve was solid enough to bail him out of trouble on several occasions.
He sent down 11 aces on Saturday, compared to 19 and 16 in his last two encounters.
But An did well to tackle the the Pakistani with some fine returns and his baseline game was equally impressive.
Qureshi got the break in the 11th game to go 6-5 up and serve out the first set.
In the second, the Pakistani upped his game to break An in the third game and take a 2-1 lead.
He twice double-faulted while serving for the match at 5-4 but came back with two aces to seal victory
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