By all rights, Radek Stepanek probably shouldn’t have been in the finals at all.  Had Mardy Fish not been both fatigued and injured, he might have beaten Stepanek in the second round.  But Fish did hurt his heel, and he did withdraw from the ATP 500 event, and this let Wayne Odesnik, whose ranking has slipped into triple digits, to play Stepanek in the second round.  He would be the first of four lefties that he would beat en route.  Stepanek would credit being coached by Czech, Petr Korda, himself a lefty, for getting him used to hitting against a lefty.

Stepanek had another advantage.  He had finished his match Saturday afternoon.  Meanwhile, Monfils didn’t finish his match til almost 1:30 in the morning, and didn’t get to bed until nearly 4 AM.  He didn’t head to warm up until about half an hour before the match, and then delayed the match about ten minutes.

Stepanek took advantage of Monfils fatigue.  Monfils never had a break point, and Stepanek took advantage of the two break points he had, one in each set, to win 6-4, 6-4.  Stepanek should pick up about 450 points out of the 500 (he should drop a 45 point ATP 500 result, the worst of his results) and be about 33 in the world, which should get him seeded at the US Open provided at least one player drops out.

This is Stepanek’s fifth title and his first ATP 500 win.  At 32, he is the oldest player in the top 100.