January 11, 2014 8:12 PM

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John Isner wins Auckland title in Open buildup<br/>

John Isner fired 23 aces in a match which had no service breaks to beat Lu Yen-hsun of Taiwan 7-6 (4), 7-6 (7) in the final of the ATP&apos;s Heineken Open in Auckland, his last tune up for next week&apos;s Australian Open.No. 14-ranked Isner captured his eighth career singles title and won the title in New Zealand for the second time after his victory in 2010.The match was similar to Isner&apos;s quarterfinal victory over fifth-seeded Philipp Kohlschreiber which went to three sets, all tiebreaks and contained no breaks of serve. Isner played six tiebreaks in 10 sets at the tournament and won five.The third-seeded Isner, playing with an right ankle injury he picked up at the Hopman Cup the previous week, took a crucial minibreak to open the first set tiebreaker.In the second tiebreaker, he rallied from 3-0 down and closed with an ace on his third championship point.&quot;This match was very tight as every match I&apos;ve played this week was very tight,&quot; Isner said. &quot;I needed every bit of it to come out on top.&quot;I&apos;ve spent a lot of time on this court this week but as each match progressed I was getting more and more comfortable.&quot;Isner heads into the Australian Open with a question mark hanging over his fitness because of his injured ankle.&quot;I&apos;d like to thank my chiropractor because I had a bit of a banged up ankle coming in here and he spent tireless hours working on me and without him I wouldn&apos;t have been able to take this court,&quot; Isner said.Lu has played on the ATP Tour for 13 years and reached his first final on Saturday. He played with tenacity, weathering Isner&apos;s serving power while saving 10 out of 10 break points he faced.&quot;I&apos;ve been through injuries, I dropped my ranking and came back and in the last few years I was really stable in the top 100,&quot; Lu said.&quot;But this was a really good step to reach a final on the ATP Tour and I hope I can take this performance and go into next week and the rest of the year.&quot;In the WTA event at Hobart, Spanish qualifier Garbine Muguruza defeated Klara Zakapalova of the Czech Republic 6-4, 6-0 to claim her first singles title.The 20-year-old Muguzura, who did not drop a set from the qualifiers to the final, joins 2012 champion Mona Barthel as the only qualifiers to win the Hobart event.Muguruza, ranked 58th, beat second-seeded and Wimbledon semifinalist Kirsten Flipkens in the quarterfinals, while Zakapalova defeated top-seeded and former U.S. Open champion Sam Stosur in the semis.Muguruza won the opening set when she broke Zakapalova&apos;s service in the 10th game.The Venezuelan-born Muguruza has a first-round match against Kaia Kanepi of Estonia at the Australian Open.Source: DD news

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