Joachim Johansson claimed his first ATP title with a 7-6(5), 6-3 victory over Germany's Nicolas Kiefer to win the Kroger St. Jude in Memphis.

The Swede fired seven aces - and a total of 78 for the week - during the 1-hour, 34-minute win. Johansson becomes the fourth different Swedish winner in Memphis, joining Bjorn Borg, Stefan Edberg and Magnus Larsson. He also became the first Swede to win an ATP title since Jonas Bjorkman won Nottingham in June 2002.

"It feels great," said Johansson. "There have been three other Swedish players to win this title and now I'm the fourth. It's been some time since a Swedish player has a won a tournament.

"I haven't seen that much of Memphis but it's always going to be very close to my heart for the rest of my life. I always wanted to win an ATP tournament, so to do it here. It was a great crowd out there so it's going to be very special for me."

Holding Serve

The 6'6" Johansson was not broken throughout the week, holding serve 55 consecutive games, and faced just five break points during the tournament. He has not lost his serve since the fourth game of the first set of his quarterfinal loss to Andy Roddick in San Jose, having held serve a total of 63 consecutive games.

En route to his first career final, he defeated Hyung-Taik Lee, No. 6 seed James Blake, Xavier Malisse and No. 2 seed Mardy Fish.

"It was one of my goals to win a tournament this year," said Johansson. "I'd won a few challengers and I was playing well at the end of last year so I was hoping I could keep that form up and keep playing like that this year and that's what happened. But I didn't expect to win my first title so soon."

Kiefer, who was appearing in his 13th career ATP final and his first in the United States, was looking to win his first title since Hong Kong in 2000. The 26-year-old German, who was making his first appearance in Memphis, ended a six-match losing streak prior to the tournament with victories over Eric Taino, Jurgen Melzer, Jan-Michael Gambill and Thomas Enqvist to reach the final.

Repeat

The final between Johansson and Kiefer was a repeat of their first round match in San Jose, which Johansson won in three sets. Both players started the final well with the first set going comfortably with serve until Johansson handed Kiefer a set point at 4-5 with a double fault. But the Swede responded with a 126 mph ace out wide to stop the danger.

In the tie-break, Kiefer began with a double fault of his own and Johansson stormed into a 4-2 lead before pushing a volley long to allow Kiefer to get back on terms. But Johansson produced another stunning forehand winner to open up two set points, and, after missing a 130mph second serve on the first, Kiefer hit a forehand wide to hand the Swede the first set.

Confidence

Brimming with confidence, Johansson started the second set firing on all cylinders. With the Swede up 4-3, Kiefer double faulted for the sixth time in the match to hand Johansson the crucial break, and he converted his third match point to seal a famous victory.

"I think today he had much more confidence than last week [in San Jose]," said Kiefer. "He's won a few matches here. I played much better than last week but I didn't get so many chances on his serve. He has a big serve. I had a few 15-30 chances but he came up with the big serves and it just didn't go my way today. He deserved to win."
Despite the loss, Kiefer said he was pleased with the way his week went.

"If someone had told me when I came here last Saturday that I would be in the final, I would have taken it straight away," said the German. "You work the whole year to win tournaments, and when you get to the final you want to win. But there is only one winner.

" Anyway, it's a great success for me to be in the final and to have won four great matches, also to show to myself that I can still do it. All the great work is paying off. I didn't play my best tennis for many months. I just tried to stay in during the first round, the second round again I played a bad match, but I just tried to stay in. Match by match it came back and now I feel very good for the next few tournaments in the States and looking forward to winning some matches."