Krajicek Tunes Up With Win in the Netherlands

Richard Krajicek of the Netherlands, making the perfect tuneup for his Wimbledon title defense, defeated Guillaume Raoux of France, 6-4, 7-6 (9-7), Sunday to win the Heineken Trophy tournament at Rosmalen, Netherlands.

Ruxandra Dragomir of Romania won the women’s final in the grass-court event, defeating Miriam Oremans of the Netherlands, 5-7, 6-2, 6-4.

The women’s match had been suspended because of rain Saturday night. It resumed with Dragomir, seeded third in this tournament and No. 15 for Wimbledon, leading, 3-1, in the final set.

Oremans couldn’t force a break point on Dragomir’s serve and the six games played all went with serve until Oremans hit a wild return at match point for Dragomir.

Krajicek, seeded No. 3 at Rosmalen and No. 4 at Wimbledon, opens play today against Marcello Craca of Germany.

One of the hardest servers in tennis, Krajicek did not lose a service game during the tournament. He earned $66,400 and moved into fifth place in the ATP rankings.

In a match dominated by serves, Krajicek scored two big points on backhand returns: on break point as Raoux served in the fifth game and at 8-7 match point down in the second-set tiebreaker.

Krajicek fired three aces in his first service game, and three games later seized the match’s only break point to lead, 3-2.

Raoux never threatened Krajicek’s serve. But after the first set, he conceded only two points in his next eight service games to take the second set to a tiebreaker. Krajicek’s 14th ace set up a match point as the first 15 points of the tiebreaker went with serve.

And Krajicek’s low return forced Raoux to net his volley, ending the match after 68 minutes.

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The Wimbledon warmup at Eastbourne, England, ended without a winner when rain forced the final between Jana Novotna of Czech Republic and Arantxa Sanchez Vicario of Spain to be called off in the first set.

The match, already delayed since Saturday because of rain, concluded amid more showers, with Novotna leading 6-5. They each received $36,000.