Young Reaches First ATP Final in Bangkok at LinesMaker.com

Young Reaches First ATP Final in Bangkok

Updated Oct 1, 2011 11:39 AM ET

BANGKOK

Amer­i­can Don­ald Young advanced to his first ATP Tour final, ral­ly­ing to beat ninth-ranked Gael Mon­fils 4–6, 7–6 (5), 7–6 (5) Sat­ur­day in the Thai­land Open.

He’ll play Andy Mur­ray, who defeated Gilles Simon 6–2, 3–6, 6–2.

The 55th-ranked Young trailed 4–1 in the third set before ral­ly­ing to 4–4. He recov­ered from 5–3 down in the tiebreaker to win after Mon­fils’ eighth double-fault.

”Lately in the big matches that I’ve won, I’ve been down,” the 22-year-old Young said. ”I just tried to fight and not give up. It paid div­i­dends at the end of match.”

The fourth-ranked Mur­ray won 88 per­cent of points on his first serve in the open­ing set before stum­bling in longer ral­lies dur­ing the sec­ond against the 2009 cham­pion. Mur­ray reached 3–0 and 5–2 against Simon in the third but needed six match points to win.

Mur­ray pre­dicted Young will be a tough opponent.

”It’s his first final, he’s going to be up for it,” Mur­ray said. ”You never know how a guy will react in his first final … He might be a bit ner­vous, but he doesn’t have any­thing to lose.”

Mon­fils’ first break point put him ahead 5–4 and he won the first set after a fore­hand error by Young.

The French­man saved one set point while trail­ing 6–5 in the sec­ond before allow­ing the Amer­i­can back into the match when his own fore­hand sailed wide and Young clinched the sec­ond set.

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