ESPN Tennis

DELRAY BEACH, Fla. -- With the help of some broken racket strings, Tommy Haas beat defending champion Xavier Malisse 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (5) on Sunday to win the International Tennis Championships.

Malisse's racket strings popped on a return at 6-5 in the third-set tiebreaker, sending the ball long and giving the fourth-seeded Haas his first title since 2004.

Haas improved to 11-2 this year, with his only losses coming to top-ranked Roger Federer at Doha and the Australian Open.

The 27-year-old Haas now has eight career titles. This was his first since capturing the trophies at the 2004 Houston and Los Angeles tournaments.

"It's been a while," said Haas, who is ranked 30th. "Any time you're in a final, it's nice to win it."

The German reached a career-high ranking of No. 2 in May 2002. A shoulder injury sidelined him for the entire 2003 season.

Despite the loss, the 36th-ranked Malisse still owns the best record of any player that has played at the Delray Beach tournament -- 20-6 in seven appearances.

Malisse, 25, won his only career title here with a straight-set victory last year over Jiri Novak of the Czech Republic. Malisse lost in the 1999 finals to Lleyton Hewitt, and the 2001 finals to Jan-Michael Gambill.

"I played well but was just a little unlucky," said Malisse, who reached the finals this year in Adelaide and is 1-8 in career finals. "I keep telling myself that if you play in a final, it's not a bad week."

The players delighted fans with their powerful shot-making throughout a match that lasted 2 hours, 11 minutes.

"I heard the announcer say what [Malisse has] done in the past here so I knew he was feeling really good at this tournament," said Haas, who is 9-3 against the Belgian. "So I'm more proud to beat him here. It was tight and could've gone either way at the end."

At 2-2 in the first set, Haas broke away to win four of the last five games. Malisse squandered five game points in the sixth, eventually allowing Haas to break serve on a second break point by dumping a forehand into the bottom of the net.

Both players held serve until 3-3 in the second set before Malisse took the final three games to even the match at one set apiece.

The final set was nip-and-tuck all the way, with the players exchanging service breaks in the seventh and eighth games.

Haas jumped out to a 4-1 lead in the tiebreaker when Malisse smacked a forehand wide.

Although Malisse was able to pull even at 4-4, Haas finally put himself in position to win with a forehand drive down the line to go up 6-4.

Malisse won the next point with a service winner. Haas was serving for the match when Malisse's racket strings popped on a forehand approach shot.

Haas won $52,000, and Malisse earned $30,600 as runner-up.

Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press