Tian Caijun defeated Belgium’s Alexander Blockx 4-3(4), 4-2, 4-1 in the Next Generation ATP finals in Jeddah on Sunday to win the title.
The 20-year-old American joins a list of winners of the event that includes Carlos Alcaraz, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Jannik Sinner and Joao Fonseca.
Tien, from Irvine, California, received $502,250 for his efforts. He lost to Fonseca in last year’s final in Jeddah.
Tian, who won his first ATP title in Metz in November, has won nine of his last 10 matches.
“I’m very happy,” Tien said of his stellar 2025 season, which saw him reach the round of 16 at the Australian Championships and rack up five top-10 wins. “I was able to check off a lot of the goals that I wanted to achieve this year. I had a long list of goals that I wanted to achieve, and I was able to achieve most of them. I’m really happy.”
Blockx was undefeated (4-0) entering the finals, but lost in a rematch of the 2023 Australian Open men’s finals, falling to 0-3 against top 30 teams, ultimately won by Blockx.
Brooks completed all 21 first serves in the first set, but still could not win the first set and lost in the tie-break.
From that point on, Tiann saved the two break points he faced and took over on the second and third break points to win in regular fashion.
