Monday 6 August 2018

Zverev Buzarnescu Kuznetsova lift trophies

Day Seven saw the finals in both Washington and San Jose.


Washington:

ATP

Sascha Zverev (1) proved too strong for Alex de Minaur who continued to fight throughout, but today he could not penetrate the German serve.

The 6-2 6-4 win signalled a successful defence of Sascha‘s Citi Open title, and he retains his world number three ranking.

de Minaur climbs 27 places to a new career high of 45, and he passes more Australians to become the nations number two ranked player behind Kyrgios.


WTA 

Donna Vekic (7) began brilliantly in the Citi Open final against Sveta Kuznetsova and although her advantage fell away towards the end of set one, she steeled herself to break the Russian serve at 4-5 and take the lead 6-4.

This was the first time Kuznetsova had dropped a set in the whole tournament.

Set two saw Vekic have match points on the Kuznetsova serve when leading 5-4, but when these evaporated, things became tougher for the Croatian.


A tie break occurred, and Kuznetsova took initial control, ahead 4-2 with a serve to come.  Vekic won that point and proceeded to gain match points at 6-5 and 7-6.  Kuznetsova saved each of these and after winning the final three points of the tie break had levelled the match 4-6 7-6(7).

Vekic, after failing to take any of her chances, seemed to lose her confidence, while Kuznetsova was quite the opposite, and the final set was a walk in the park for the Russian.  


Sveta Kuznetsova won her 18th title 4-6 7-6(7) 6-2, not bad for a player ranked 128 entering the tournament. The dual Grand Slam title winner has the dubious record of being the lowest ranked player to win the Washington event.

She also is on an undefeated run in the US capital of 11 matches - Sveta won here in 2014 and hadn’t played another match in the tournament until this year.

Kuznetsova moves to 87 in the rankings while Vekic can take comfort in a new career high of 37, previously 42.


San Jose:

Sadly for all concerned (except Mihaela and her support), the Silicon Valley Classic final was a disaster.

Maria Sakkari was no match for the fifth seed as Mihaela Buzarnescu took all before her, surrendering a single game in winning the title 6-1 6-0.

This was the first WTA title for 30 year old Buzarnescu, following two previous finals this year.  12 months ago she was ranked 142 in the world and today Mihaela will move to a career high of 20.

As late as November 2017, Buzarnescu was playing and winning tournaments on the ITF circuit, and now she is playing and winning on the big tour.

Maria Sakkari also gains a career high ranking of 31, previously 33.

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