Marin Cilic cruises to Kremlin Cup win

Croatian Marin Cilic is presented with the Kremlin Cup in Moscow by Shamil Tarpischev. Picture: Reuters

The US Open champion was already secure of his place at the ATP World Tour finals in London next month, but showed no signs of holding back as he dispatched the world No 16 Spaniard in just 84 minutes.

Croatian Cilic maintained his momentum from taking the first set with an early break in the second and was always in control.

In the women’s tournament, Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova defeated Irina-Camelia Begu 6-4, 5-7, 6-1.

The 23-year-old, ranked 30th in the world, recovered from an early break to claim the first set. However, Romanian Begu rallied and built on a 3-1 lead in the second set to level the final.

Sixth seed Pavlyuchenkova, though, took command again as she opened up a 5-0 advantage in the decider before closing out victory in just under two-and-a-half hours.

Elsewhere, top seed Tomas Berdych battled to a 5-7, 6-4, 6-4 victory over Grigor Dimitrov to win the final of the Stockholm Open and boost his hopes of reaching the ATP Tour Finals.

Berdych consolidated seventh place in the ATP rankings ahead of Andy Murray. Bulgarian Dimitrov, the defending champion, rallied from 5-4 down to claim the first set, but Berdych recovered to level the contest before going on to close out victory in two hours and 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, Serena Williams has labelled Russian tennis federation president Shamil Tarpischev’s comments about her and her sister Venus “sexist, racist and bullying”.

Tarpischev, who is also the Russian Davis and Fed Cup captain and a member of the International Olympic Committee, referred to world No 1 Serena and Venus as “the Williams brothers” on Russian television.

He has been fined $25,000 (over £15,500) and suspended from any involvement with the WTA for a year while the governing body is also seeking his removal from his position as chairman of the board of the Kremlin Cup for a year.

Williams, quoted in the New York Times, said: “I thought [the comments] were very insensitive and extremely sexist as well as racist at the same time. I thought they were in a way bullying.”