The Sunday Mail
Brighton Zhawi
ZIMBABWE’s Benjamin Lock won his first ever title at home when he outmuscled Australian Marc Polmans in the ITF Zimbabwe F1 Futures singles final at Harare Sports Club yesterday. The 23-year-old staged a dramatic comeback to prevail 5-7; 7-6 (5) 7-5 in three hours against the canny Australian who was seeded fourth in the tournament.
Lock attributed the win to mental strength.
“It’s great to win in Zimbabwe it’s my first title at home ever and I am absolutely thrilled,” he said. “It was a really gruelling and tough match but I played to win at the end. “It was just believing and never giving up I was way down throughout the match , down a set 3-1, and I against a great player like Marc it’s really tough to comeback from there.”
Polmans blamed his poor serving. “I think I just lost a bit of confidence in my second serve, obviously (it was a) long match. “I was finding it tough to get in, but Benji was putting in a lot of pressure on my second serve that is understandable. “Hopefully next week I can reduce the double faults,” said the 19-year-old Polmans.
Lock was in the worst of starts when his serve was broke to fall 0-3 in the first set. At one point he lost his temper arguing with umpire Stanley Rudhu as he was unhappy with some line calls. In game four he changed his red playing shirt donning a grey one with a lime green strip on both shoulders and his fortunes changed.
