KEY POINTS:
A couple of hours after winning his fifth ATP title, Juan Martin Del Potro could be found standing outside the dome at 1 Tennis Lane chatting with fans while munching through a plate of pasta and salad.
Inside the dome his vanquished opponent, American Sam Querrey, was doing likewise, having found himself a seat at a table of what appeared to be ball kids and line judges.
It said a bit about the finalists from the 2009 Heineken Open that they were quite happy to stand in line behind a string of tournament volunteers to get their meals in the first place.
Nice guys, it seems, don't always come last.
Two of the bright young things on the tennis circuit, Del Potro, 20, and Querrey, 21, had both been billed as players to watch - and fallen flat - on previous visits here.
Del Potro was a first-round casualty as an 18-year-old in 2007 and Querrey suffered a similar fate last year.
But neither took long to live up to their initial billing, producing a sizzling final on Saturday to close an excellent fortnight of tennis in what was a rare spell of unblemished weather in Auckland.
Del Potro might have taken the match in just 1h 24m, but the routine 6-4 6-4 scoreline didn't reflect the tight, hard-fought affair.
Much of the contest was big men's hard court tennis, with the pair of 1.98m protagonists using their booming serves to shorten many of the points. But there were deft touches, too, with Querrey profiting from perfectly executed drop shots and Del Potro producing a series of deadly volleys and one exquisite lob.
Ranked at nine in the world and with four titles already to his name, Del Potro had the slightly better pedigree.
There didn't seem to be any holes in the Argentinian's game and it will be a surprise if he doesn't achieve his goal of pushing into the top five in the rankings in the near future.
When Querrey's serve held up he was a match for Del Potro, but too often it failed him. A first-serve percentage of just 54 per cent put him on the back foot, a position from which he was ultimately unable to recover.
"You can't play average and beat a guy ranked in the top 10," Querrey, the world No 36, said.
Not a guy like Del Potro, anyway.
In the first set with the score locked at 4-4 Del Potro turned the screws to break Querrey's serve. The American fought hard to take the decisive game to deuce but Del Potro sealed it with back-to-back service winners.
The second set was almost a carbon copy, with Del Potro again breaking in the ninth game before comfortably closing out the match on serve.
Querrey's best chance came in the fourth game of the second set when he saw two rare break points.
Del Potro said he felt nervous during that game but two big first serves got him out of trouble and he looked close to impregnable thereafter.
"After that [game] I started to play better," Del Potro said.
"I returned good and that was the key. Sam has a very good serve and sometimes you can do nothing [with it]."
A rarity for a South American, Del Potro prefers hard courts to the clay common to that continent. As well as not being a huge fan of the extra running required on clay, the hard courts suit his all-court game. Against Querrey he was able to dominate at the net, something he knows he will need to do to take his game to the next - highest - level.
"I won all my volleys. That is good for my tennis and good for my future. The best players in the world have everything."
Querrey, the crowd favourite despite the significant Argentinian contingent at centre court, was far from glum about his fate.
"I'll move up in the rankings and I got to play five matches. It was a good warm-up for the Australian Open."
