There's no place like home for Yevgeny Kafelnikov.

The 27-year-old Russian has made the Kremlin Cup in Moscow his own, and on Sunday he won his fifth straight title at the indoor event.

Nicolas Kiefer of Germany was the victim, with Kafelnikov a 6-4 7-5 victor.

Top-seeded Kafelnikov needed to rally from a break down in the first set to become only the third men's tennis player in the Open era (since 1968) to win the same event five years in a row.

Not since Hungary's Balazs Taroczy claimed the Hilversum title in 1982 has a player won five consecutive titles at the same tournament.

Bjorn Borg won both Wimbledon and the French Open five years in a row.

Kafelnikov's last loss at this tournament was to Goran Ivanisevic in the 1996 final.

After the one hour 43 minute match, which was watched by former Russian president and tennis enthusiast Boris Yeltsin, Kafelnikov tearfully pledged his £95,000 prize-money to the families of the victims of last week's crash of a Russian airliner.

The plane took off from Israel and was headed to Siberia, but exploded above the Black Sea, near Kafelnikov's home town of Sochy.

Kafelnikov's game is picking up at the right time in order to qualify for the Masters Cup in Sydney at the end of the year.

He has won 14 of his last 16 matches, reaching the semi-finals at the US Open and final of the President's Cup in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, last month.

Kiefer, who squandered a 4-2 lead in the first set, was trying to capture his first title of the year and seventh of his career.

He committed 35 unforced errors and made just seven winners.