Andy Roddick claimed the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships at his first attempt after beating Feliciano Lopez 6-7(8) 6-4 6-2 in a high quality contest that could have gone either way.

The sixth seeded American who claimed his second title of the year and the 25^th of his illustrious career, leaves Dubai $300,000 richer and with 300 ranking points is in good position to re-enter the top 5 in the coming weeks should his good form continue.

"I'm excited; I stated a couple of weeks ago that part of my decision to come here was to get a good shot at the top players", Roddick said. "I was able to do that and my success here makes it look like it was a good idea. I'm just happy to be playing good tennis right now."

For Lopez, having beaten 3 top 10 players already this week, it was a case of so near and yet so far. He came within 6 points of winning the match, but lost his serve in the second set just when he needed to hold onto it.

Roddick having already beaten the world number 2 and 3, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, will feel like a particularly worthy winner of this star-studded event that boasted 8 of the top 10 players at the start of the week.

After saving break points in the second and eighth games with some brilliant serving and strong baseline play, the opening set hinged on a nail-biting tiebreaker which saw Roddick surge to a 4-1 lead, only for the left-handed Spaniard to strike back with a brilliant running forehand pass down the line followed by a majestic serve and backhand volley winner to bring the score to 5-5. When Roddick failed to execute a backhand pass in the next point, Lopez failed to convert his set point when his backhand drop volley caught the top of the net and fell back.

The Spaniard snuffed out a Roddick set point at 6-7 with an ace and then saw a second set point opportunity erased with a Roddick service winner.

When Roddick once again failed on the backhand pass attempt at 8-8, the Spaniard made no mistake on his third set point, this time on his own serve, when the American backhand return sailed long.

With the 53 minute set under his belt, Lopez opened up the second set on serve, playing with verve and panache, out acing Roddick and executing his ground strokes to perfection.

At 0-1 Roddick found himself at 0-30, but quickly re-grouped to hold with a run of 4 points.

The Spaniard serving at 4-4 looked on the verge of causing a huge upset, but came unstuck at the wrong time. At 30-30 Lopez netted a backhand half volley off a testing backhand return from the American that dipped at his feet. Lopez then double faulted to leave Roddick serving for the set.

The grateful American then wasted no time serving out the set to love to level the match.

Roddick seized control of the match when he broke Lopez at the start of the final set to 15 when the Spaniard netted a backhand volley.

An insurance double break came in the nick of time for Roddick in the seventh game with a backhand crosscourt winner.

Roddick duly served out for the title to 15 with a service winner.

"The whole time I felt like I was playing well", Roddick said. "It's not like I'm down a set and it's 4-all and I'm struggling to hit the ball; every point I was confident I was going to play the point I wanted to."

Roddick who has not dropped his serve all week including today, was also satisfied with his baseline play:

"The biggest thing for me this week was the way I would hit my forehand to control matches, but today it was actually my crosscourt backhand that kind of controlled the match and set the tempo of the rallies. I was winning in different ways which is a good sign."

It was Lopez's backhand slice that gave Roddick some trouble from the back and the American had to adjust his tactics accordingly:

"It is known on the tour that his backhand is probably the weaker wing, but on this court with the wind swirling a lot, his slice was bothering me a lot more than his forehand was. I was going to his slice and he was cutting it and getting in behind it pretty well, so second and third sets I started hitting the ball hard and flat to his forehand and he was having to come up on it. I felt I was controlling the rallies from there, so I actually almost went backwards from what logic would tell you and it worked out for me tonight."

Although disappointed not to have won having played so well, Lopez who will jump 10 places in the ATP rankings to 31, knew that even at a set down the American was always likely to come back at him:

"I think I played almost perfect for 2 sets", he said. "In the third set he returned my serve better to get the breaks. After winning the first set I thought I had a good chance to win, but Andy is serving huge and I knew he was not going to give up."

Lopez served 24 aces to Roddick's 21, but crucially the champion converted 4 out of 7 break point opportunties, whereas Lopez did not generate a single break point on the American's serve.

Andre Jones

Dubai