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  • Amersfoort Final: Steve Darcis vs. Albert Montanes

    7/20/08 12:24 AM | Ricky Dimon
    - It will be Steve Darcis and Albert Montanes vying for the Amersfoort title on Sunday afternoon. Darcis is going for his second ATP trophy in 2008, while Montanes is competing in his first final.

    It will be the first-ever career meeting between Steve Darcis and Albert Montanes when the two players do battle in the final of the Dutch Open on Sunday.

    While both men have enjoyed breakout 2008 campaigns of sorts, their paths to the Amersfoort title match were quite different. Darcis won his first two matches in straight sets--although neither one was a cakewalk--but then needed three sets and more than two hours to beat No. 1 seed Marc Gicquel 7-5 in the third. Darcis' reward for all of that work is a spot in his second title match of the season. The 5'10'' Belgian captured a surprising hard-court title in Memphis earlier this year, but he has mostly struggled ever since.

    Montanes, meanwhile, has been in devastating form this week. He crushed Kristof Vliegen 6-4, 6-2 in round one, dispatched Pablo Cuevas 6-4, 6-4 in his next match, then destroyed Jose Acasuso 6-0, 6-2 before erasing Oscar Hernandez 6-1, 6-3 in the semifinals. Having already posted quarterfinal showings in both Barcelona and Hamburg, the 5'9'' Spaniard is continuing to prove that he is a force to reckoned with on clay. Montanes, seeded fifth in Amersfoort, also reached the quarterfinals in Stuttgart last week.

    Both Montanes and Darcis, of course, are relatively small in stature and have limited power, so this one is going to come down to their similar strengths: speed and consistency from the back of the court. Darcis, however, might need to do a little bit more mixing it up than he usually does in effort to throw of his opponent, because Montanes is simply on fire right now. Normally this would be a toss-up, but it's hard to pick against Montanes when he is in this kind of form.

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