Prakash Amritraj maintained his stranglehold over Karan Rastogi, routing him for the third consecutive time in a final to complete a hat-trick of ITF Futures titles in New Delhi on Saturday.
In a completely one-sided encounter, which lasted barely an hour, Prakash displayed an array of shots as he outplayed the top seed 6-3, 6-1 to emerge winner for the third week in a row in the USD 10,000 event.
"The best thing that I have done on this tour is keep my focus and take one step at a time. My goal was to maintain the level that I achieved in Chandigarh and Dehradun," Prakash said after the summit clash.
"When I look back at the last couple of finals and today, I would say Karan is no pushover and he has a good game. To come out on top against him for three successive weeks is not easy. This makes this win all the more special for me," he added.
Prakash's third successive win brought back memories of the 2003 Satellite Masters triumph where he remained undefeated for three weeks.
As then, the winning streak is bound to boost Prakash's rankings by nearly 300 places and place him among the top 400.
Prakash said he would now focus on playing in the Challengers and build himself up for ATP events.
"My ranking will get a boost and now I will focus on the Challengers. I will take a two-week break after this and start building myself for the US Open qualifiers," he said.
On whether returning to the Indian Davis Cup team, a place he lost to Karan after getting injured, was among his goals, Prakash said, "being in the Davis Cup is not my call but whenever I am asked, I will be on the first flight to India."
A dejected Karan praised Prakash and admitted that he was not up to the task.
"Hard luck, what can I say. He played beautifully and deserved to win," he said.
It looked as if Karan was bogged down by the mental baggage of the previous defeats.
He lost his serve in the very first game after committing three double faults.
The fifth seeded Prakash, on the other hand, served exceptionally well, sending down three aces in the first set besides having a better first serve percentage.
Karan did have his share of chances on Prakash's serve but they went abegging as he failed to land the winners. The top seed led 40-0 in the fourth game but lost it from there as he hit his returns outside or in to the nets.
It was smooth sailing for Prakash as Karan had no answer to his fierce serves. The fifth seed was also clinical close to the nets, hitting some excellent drop shots.
Leading 5-3, Prakash broke Karan once again in the ninth game to clinch the opener.
The second set was even more lopsided as Prakash did not allow the top seed to open his account until the fifth game.
Karan struggled to keep pace with Prakash on the baseline and with his serve also being inconsistent, committing seven double faults in all he stood no chance against his US-based rival.
