David Ferrer cracked Feliciano Lopez's serve three times in Sunday's final en route to winning his 25th career ATP title. The win keeps Ferrer placed inside the top eight in the rankings as the race to the year-end ATP Tour Finals in London continues.

Tight First Set Won Late
Both Spanish players started the match in a good groove on serve as both held their first three games to a 3-3 score. It was Feliciano Lopez who would draw first blood in the seventh game as he came out of nowhere to break Ferrer at love for a 4-3 lead. The top seed would dig right in though as he broke Lopez in the next game to get back on serve at 4-4. The next three games went according to serve to take it to 6-5 in favor of Ferrer with the lefty Lopez serving to send it to a tie break. Ferrer again worked into Lopez's serve, taking advantage of the second serve very well as he broke to take the first set 7-5.

Ferrer's edge in the set came on his serve as the top seed got in 86 percent of his first serves, letting Lopez see just four second serves for the set. Lopez meanwhile had a bit more trouble than in previous rounds in winning easy points on serve. That came mostly from the quality of return and defense on the other side of the net as Lopez won just 70 percent of his first serve points after winning 80 percent in the semifinals against Nick Kyrgios. His second serve was punished as Ferrer won nine of the 12 points that the lefty had to put in play on his second serve.

Lopez Works Hard To Stay In Second Set
The second set was a near carbon copy of the first as David Ferrer continued to make the second seed work harder on serve than he had all tournament. After a love hold to open, Ferrer crafted a look at three break points in the second game off Lopez's serve. The lefty was able to save all three to 1-1. The top two seeds would exchange holds over the next five games to see Ferrer in the lead 4-3 with Lopez to serve the 8th game. Lopez again ran into trouble as Ferrer forced him into three deuces and saw three break chances again. Once more, the second seed was able to fend off the break as the set moved to 4-4.

Things remained even to the 11th game with Ferrer serving. For the first time in the set, Lopez would get a look at a break point after a pair of deuces were reached. However, the top seed remained steady on serve as he fought off the break point and held for a 6-5 lead. Like clock work, Lopez saw his focus lacking just a bit to open the next game after failing to covert one of the few break opportunities he saw all match. Ferrer would take advantage by working Lopez into a quick love-40 hole with the lefty double faulting to give Ferrer triple match point. After one save, Ferrer would cash in the break to close out the match 7-5 in the second set.

After the match, Ferrer told reporters that he played his best tennis of the week against Lopez, “I was consistent with my game and am happy with the victory. My serve was good today and it needed to be because Feliciano pressured me today.”

Ferrer Eyes ATP Tour Finals
Entering the week, Ferrer was ranked 8th and led 9th place Milos Raonic by more than 700 points. The title in Kuala Lumpur nets Ferrer 250 points and will see him pass his fellow Spaniard Rafael Nadal for the 7th spot in this week's rankings. Ferrer now heads to Beijing for the China Open where Nadal and Raonic are both scheduled to join him.