Philippoussis downsIvanisevic in final

LONDON, June 15: Australian Mark Philippoussis, the fastest server on the circuit, won the Stella Artois grass-court title today with a har...

LONDON, June 15: Australian Mark Philippoussis, the fastest server on the circuit, won the Stella Artois grass-court title today with a hard-hitting victory over fellow service specialist Goran Ivanisevic of Croatia.

The 20-year-old from Melbourne served 15 aces in the 7-56-3 win. There were only two break points in the match 8212; in the 12th game of the first set and the eighth of the second 8212; and Philippoussis, playing his most consistent tennis of the week, made no mistake.

Ivanisevic, like Philippoussis, a lofty 1.95m tall, slammed down 12 aces in the match which produced only a handful of rallies longer than four shots.The longest exchange happened after a frustrated Ivanisevic offered his racket to a ball girl at 3-3 in the second set. Philippoussis played a gentle rally of 17 shots with the girl before gallantly losing the point.

Yesterday, in the semi-finals, Ivanisevic won the tightest of service duels with Briton Greg Rusedski, triumphing 20-18 in a remarkable final set tie-break.

The third seed8217;s tense 4-6 6-4 7-6 victory, in which he traded booming aces with Rusedski, while Philippoussis beat Swedish eighth seed Jonas Bjorkman 2-6 7-6 6-2.

Kuerten loses final

BOLOGNA: Felix Mantilla of Spain recovered from a set down to beat French Open champion Gustavo Kuerten in the final of the Bologna international clay-court tournament today.

Mantilla, the tournament8217;s second seed, ended the Brazilian8217;s winning streak of 16 matches. Ranked 16th, he triumphed 4-6 6-2 6-1 in sweltering heat to earn his second ATP title.

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Kuerten appeared well below his recent form. He had reached the final beating Marzio Martelli of Italy 6-1, 6-2 in just 50 minutes.

Mantilla beat Karim Alami of Morocco, 6-3, 6-2 in the other semi-final.

Rain washes out play

BIRMINGHAM: The rain that interrupted play and postponed some matches on Friday at the DFS Classic returned yesterday to wipe out the entire schedule and push everything back to today.

If everything goes according to schedule, top-seeded Irina Spirlea or Belgium8217;s Dominique van Roost could have to play three matches today.

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Spirlea of Romania and Belgium8217;s van Roost were to start the day with their still-to-be-completed quarterfinal.