Victor Estrella Burgos joined a select club with a comeback win at the Ecuador Open.
The Dominican, who captured his first ATP World Tour title at age 34 last year, successfully defended his title in Quito with a 4-6 7-6 (7/5) 6-2 final win against Thomaz Bellucci.
Burgos joins Stan Wawrinka (Chennai), Viktor Troicki (Sydney), Novak Djokovic (Australian Open) and Richard Gasquet (Montpellier) to successfully defend their titles this year.
Third seed Bellucci took the initiative by stretching Estrella Burgos with heavy left-handed serves and penetrating ground strokes to take the first set in 29 minutes.
Estrella Burgos found success by slicing forehand returns and extending the baseline exchanges, but had to rely on a second set tie-break to keep the match alive.
The defending champion made the most of the momentum shift to break in the opening game of the deciding set and sealed the win in just over two hours.
Source: PA
