By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Sunday February 9, 2020
Cristian Garin took the final seven games and earned his third career title with the three-set victory over Diego Schwartzman in Cordoba.
Photo Source: TTV
Cristian Garin is back to his winning ways. The 23-year-old Chilean was one of the breakthrough stories of the 2019 ATP season as he claimed his first two career titles and climbed all the way inside the Top 40 from a ranking outside the Top 80 to start the season.
Garin confidently came back from a set down to knock off top-seeded Diego Schwartzman 2-6 6-4 6-0 at the Cordoba Open to claim his third career title.
It was a tough loss for Schwartzman, and a tougher finish. He drops to 3-5 lifetime in ATP finals and 2-2 against Garin.
Garin proved to be the most resilient player in Cordoba this week, as he fell behind by a set in each of his last three matches, but engineered fantastic finishes in all three matches. Remarkably, Garin owns a 9-2 record in best-of-three matches when he has dropped the opening set since the start of 2019.
He will climb inside the Top 30 of the ATP rankings for the first time, at a projected 27, as a result of his title.
Garin officially arrived on the comeback trail on Sunday when he broke Schwartzman for 4-2 in the middle set, but the Argentinean was still hungry to close it in straights in front of a partisan crowd. He broke Garin back for 4-5 but the Chilean took the set with another spectacular return game. He broke at 15 at the end of a physical rally when Schwartzman netted a backhand.
Garin would not drop another game from there. He saved a break point in the opening game of the third set and would not allow Schwartzman to convert any of his three game points in the next game. Eventually he broke on his second break point for 2-0.
Schwartzman again had a game point while serving at 0-3 but Garin would not let him off the hook and broke three points later for 4-0.
The Chilean held at love for 5-0 and broke a now dejected Schwartzman with relative ease in the final game, lashing an inside-out forehand for a clean winner to clinch the victory in two hours and four minutes.