In his fourth appearance at the Little Rock Open, Dallas native Mitchell Krueger finally broke through and emerged as the tournament champion after defeating Yuta Shimizu of Japan in straight sets Sunday afternoon under hot and humid conditions at the Rebsamen Tennis Center in Little Rock. Krueger, 30, won the ATP Challenger Tour event final 6-3, 6-4 over Shimizu, 24. While it looked like an easy victory for Krueger, Shimizu proved to be a formidable opponent as he continuously responded to adversity and kept the games competitive.
"The score might look fairly straight forward, but it was anything but as I was trying everything I could to keep the points as short as possible," Krueger said following the victory. "Luckily, my serve bailed me out big today." In the first set, Krueger won the first two games and eventually built a 4-1 advantage.
Shimizu responded and pulled out several games to get within 5-3, before Krueger closed out the first set by overcoming a 30-0 deficit. In the second set, Shimizu came out strong and won the first game. Krueger would go on to win the next three games to jump out to a 3-1 lead.
Once again, Shimizu generated a comeback to get within 5-4 before Krueger was able to put him away by winning the final game of the set in empathetic fashion. "Anything I could do to dictate and be as aggressive as possible I was trying to do, and I thought it worked out really well," Krueger said. "(Shimizu) is definitely a tough guy to play, especially on these c.