Not because the 25-year-old Australian was ranked No 4 and the 26-year-old Swede was ranked No 88. Simply put, Rafter is in a class of his own. And he displayed this in no small measure by completing a comfortable 6-3, 6-4 win over the defending champion to win the glittering gold trophy. ``I would love to come back and win this again,'' he told the cheering crowd, after collecting the winner's cheque of $58,000. Tillstrom had to be content with $34,000 this time.

Certainly his fans would like nothing better. The crowd was divided between between the Australian and the Swede, who enjoys considerable popularity here. But somehow Tillstrom could not capture the magic that saw him get the better of German Alex Radulescu in the unforgettable final lastyear.

If the final a year ago was memorable, certainly the same cannot be said to describe Sunday's match. And the one-sided nature of the contest was perhaps the chief reason. Last year's final lasted a little over two and a half hours and had everything - enthralling tennis, a cliff hanger of a contest and high drama including a disputed point on match point which would have given the German the title. This year's final lasted just 73 minutes, was too one-sided to be really interesting and the mistakes by both players - particularly Tillstrom - saw to it that the match, as a contest, never rose above mediocrity.

But then Rafter has such a majestic presence that he makes for compulsive viewing. Certainly the main reason why he won in such a convincing fashion was that his serve and volley worked so well, as he himself pointed out at the post match press conference. The fact that he had a first serve percentage of 65 best illustrates this. And given his service prowess, two double faults in ten servicegames is perhaps excusable.

As far as stroke production was concerned, Tillstrom was perhaps even better than Rafter. His elegant, silky smooth groundstrokes with which he repeatedly passed Rafter, brought back memories of his illustrious predecessors Borg, Wilander and Edberg. But then consistency was not Tillstrom's forte. An incredible service return winner would be followed by a simple volleying error, an ace would be followed by a double fault. This prevented him from retaining the sobriquet ``Aussie basher,'' the Swede having disposed of Mark Woodforde and Todd Woodbridge in the previous two rounds. On Sunday however he found the third Aussie in his path too solid a hurdle to get past.

The second-seeded Indian pair of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi encountered some hiccups before defeating the fourth-seeded pair of Oliver Delaitre (France) and Max Mrinyi (Belarus) 6-7 (5-7), 6-3, 6-2 before retaining their doubles crown.

A close first set which saw many excellent rallies was followed by a grandfightback by the Indians. Mirnyi was broken in the fourth game of the second set and that was enough for the Indian to level the scores. In the decider, first Mirnyi (third game) and then Delaitre (fifth game) were broken with the Paes-Bhupathi combination clicking like a dream and in the end, the Indians, backed by a vociferous crowd, emerged winners to again lay their hands on the winner's cheque of $29,400.