Canas wins Tata Open for countrymen

Argentine top seed Guillermo Canas powered his way to a second career ATP tour title at the Indian Open on Sunday beating Paradorn Srichaphan 6-4, 7-6, and then dedicated the win to his countrymen.

The 24-year-old beat the unseeded Thai with a near perfect display of relentless baseline play and served notice that he had big ambitions this year.

"I thought I would do this for the people of my country because the economic conditions back home are not good and this win will make my friends and countrymen very happy for a moment in these tough times," Canas said. "I most certainly dedicate this win to my country."

Canas said the comfortable win in the first week of the year had boosted his confidence for next week's Australian Open and the season ahead.

"I want to try and become the top player this year and for that I need to improve all aspects of my game but I am feeling very confident now.

"The two months of practice I had at home at the end of last year has helped," he added.

The Argentine, who had a dream run last year climbing up to 14th from 130 in the ATP Champion's Race and winning his first title at Casablanca, also pocketed $51,500.

Srichaphan, the Thai number one who entered the tournament as a last minute replacement for injured Belarussian Vladimir Voltchkov, was pleased with his performance.

"Today Canas was playing just too good for me. I made a few mistakes and he took those chances. But I am happy because I had a pretty good run this week and enjoyed my tennis," said Srichaphan, who upset three seeds -- Max Mirnyi, Thomas Johansson and Andrei Pavel -- on the way to his first tour final.

The 22-year-old Thai started badly losing his first and fifth service games, but fought back briefly running down near winners and hitting powerfully from both flanks to pull one break back in the eighth game.

But Canas served out to love to win the first set in 48 minutes. Although Srichaphan fought gamely in the latter part of the second set to take it into a tiebreak, the top seed justified his ranking by shutting him out with a series of blistering passes and service winners to wrap up the tiebreak 7-2.