By Nangamso Mabindla
18 February 2008

CROATIAN top seed and pre-tournament favourite Ivan Ljubicic kept his cool on a hot East London Sunday to win the SAA South African Tennis Open at a packed Selborne Tennis Park.

Ljubicic on 17 February beat second seeded Austrian and last year's SAA Tennis Open semi-finalist Stefan Koubek 7-6, 6-4 to claim the crown on his first attempt. Speaking after the hard-fought, straight sets victory, Ljubicic said that he was happy to have won the ATP Challenger series.

"It [the final] was a fantastic match and I was happy that we had little wind today. I was able to put in a lot of my first serves, and that set up my victory against Stefan."

Ljubicic played the final just 20 minutes after completing his semi-final match against 2002 Australian Open Champion Thomas Johansson earlier on Sunday. The match had been interrupted by rain on Saturday.

He promised to be back in East London to defend his title next year and said South Africa deserved to have an ATP tournament. "The attendance today was great, and this shows that South Africans support the game. After seeing support of this nature I am convinced that the country does deserve to have an ATP tournament."

Runner up Koubek echoed Ljubicic's sentiments, saying that East Londoners proved that the country supported tennis. "This was bigger than last year's tournament. Today's crowd was just wonderful and I have enjoyed coming to East London - the crowd has been unbelievable," he said.

With a crowd of over 1 000 watching the final day of the Open, East Londoners ensured that it would return to Buffalo City in 2009. This was confirmed by Kaya Ngqula, the chief executive of the tournament sponsor, South African Airways.

"This has been an unbelievable week for East London, the Eastern Cape province and indeed the rest of the country. I want to thank the ATP for allowing South Africa to host an event of this nature," he said.

"East London has proven that we have the resources to host international events. We are looking forward to coming here against next year and hopefully to use this tournament to secure bigger events in the future."

Some big names came to watch the games, including Protea's coach Mickey Arthur, Premier Nosimo Balindlela, Mercedes Benz South Africa chairperson Hansgeorg Niefer, and King Maxhobandile Sandile.

Ngqula thanked the provincial government, Buffalo City, the South African Tennis Association and Mercedes Benz for supporting the tournament.