Fabrice Santoro collected his first ATP title in more than two years at the expense of Younes El Aynaoui on Sunday.

The Frenchman was a winner in the Middle East then, at the Qatar Open in Doha, and this time collected a winners' cheque worth over £110,000 at the Dubai Tennis Championships.

He came through a 6-4 3-6 6-3 victor for his fourth career ATP title.

The 29-year-old won his most recent match against El Aynaoui at the 1999 Stuttgart Indoor event, after the Moroccan beat him earlier in the year at Doha.

Santoro also beat El Aynaoui at the 1994 Montevideo clay-court tournament after falling to the Moroccan at Porto earlier in the season.

Santoro climbed to as high as 17th in the ATP rankings last year while today saw El Aynaoui contesting his second final of 2002, having already won the Doha event.

The Moroccan also upset reigning Australian Open champion Thomas Johansson, the third seed here, on Saturday to advance to the final.

But he was unable to carry on his form of the second set into the decider and Santoro finished a comfortable enough winner.