Andy Roddick produced one of his best performances for many years to win the Dubai Open title with a 6-7 (8-10) 6-4 6-2 win over Feliciano Lopez of Spain.
Roddick, who beat French Open champion Rafael Nadal and Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic along the way, did not drop his serve throughout the tournament and delivered 84 aces during the week.
Several of them were more than 150 miles an hour - not far from his world record of 155mph - but the American's performance showed that there are other ingredients to his game besides the most dynamic serve in the business.
Roddick had phases when he attacked well from the net too, and, particularly in the final set, came up with some accurate ground strokes which frustrated the in-form Lopez and extracted errors.
‘I didn't feel like he was missing at all in the first set,’ said Roddick.
‘When I lost the tie-break I told myself just keep at it because I don't remember him missing a ball.
‘This is as well as I have ever played,’ added Roddick.
‘With these great players here and to finish a week like this it is just great.’
It was all the more remarkable because Roddick had a 6,000 mile journey from Memphis via Frankfurt which left him jet-lagged and exhausted for the first two days of the tournament.
It also caused comment that Roddick should play so well in his first tournament since splitting with his coach Jimmy Connors.
The first set had a staccato, predictable course through to an exciting and unpredictable tie-break.
Games went with serve, both men delivering a stack full of aces, and Lopez handling the three break points against him particularly well.
Then it seemed that Roddick had gained a decisive one-point mini-break in the tie-break, just as he had against both Nadal and Djokovic the previous two evenings.
Roddick consolidated to 4-1 with his pair of serves, and just when this seemed likely to be decisive he risked a slightly over-confident approach and gave Lopez time and room to unleash an arrowing forehand pass down the line.
Points then continued on serve, Lopez getting a set point at 6-5 and Roddick one at 7-6, before Lopez got to the net in a decent position against the Roddick serve at 8-8 and forced the American to dump an attempted backhand pass into the net.
That decided the first set.
When Lopez thundered three aces in a row, his 17th, 18th and 19th of the match to nose ahead 4-3 in the second set, an upset seemed very possible.
But in the course of a few minutes the whole match turned around.
It happened after Lopez, serving for 5-4, struck a loose forehand drive wide to go 30-all, and then put a low forehand volley into the net after charging a little too ambitiously in behind a first serve.
Roddick came up with a nasty low return to extract that volleying error and the pressure it created was worth two points, for Lopez immediately delivered a double fault.
That cost him the second set, but worse was to follow.
Roddick kept plugging steadily away with his returns and his ground strokes and was rewarded with another break at the start of the final set.
He elicited a forehand error from Lopez to make the break point, and a backhand volleying error to convert it.
Roddick had not dropped a service game throughout the tournament - and he was not going to begin now.
He consolidated the break with a hold to love, reached 3-1 with a hold to 15, and, with a surge of confidence, carved another break of the Lopez serve at 5-2 with the help of three hard backhands which elicited volleying errors.
Lopez looked very disappointed at the end, but it had been one of the best tournament performances of his career to have beaten three top ten players and to repeat his 2004 achievement of reaching the final.
