Top seed Gustavo Kuerten sealed his fifth title of the year after defeating Argentinian Guillermo Canas in straight sets to clinch the Mercedes Cup in Stuttgart.

Having come through two gruelling matches in the quarter and semi-finals, the Brazilian dominated the best-of-five final contest, triumphing 6-3 6-2 6-4 over the 10th seed on his favourite clay surface.

Kuerten, who was playing in his first tournament since lifting the French Open title in May, needed three sets to get past Ecuador's Nicolas Lapentti on Friday and survived a drawn out battle with Czech Jiri Novak on Saturday.

However, the reigning world number one made it look easy against an opponent he has now beaten five times in five meetings to claim his second Mercedes Cup title in four years.

"It feels great, it's been a great week," said Kuerten.

"We had a Brazilian atmosphere here today, the crowd was so involved.

"I think my serve was great, I saved many break points on my serve and I was also very solid from the baseline.

"This year on clay has been better than I could ever expect. The confidence level I have right now allows me to raise my level on the big points.

"That is what has made me successful the last couple of years," added the 24-year-old, who took his grandmother on a lap of honour around the court in the brand new Mercedes-Benz CLK 320 given to him by the tournament sponsor.

With this success Kuerten moves to second in the ATP Champions Race and improved to 5-1 in title matches this year.

Canas, who ousted defending champion Franco Squillari and Russia's Yevgeny Kafelnikov during his run to the final, was aiming for his second career title following his win in Casablanca earlier this year.

It was the fourth final appearance for the Argentinian and he said: "I made some easy mistakes and he served well on the important points.

"In the third set I started to play well again but it was too late. He (Kuerten) is the best clay court player, you need to play on top to beat him.

"I'm very happy to have reached the final though, it's a step forward in my career," he added.