Dasha first title New Haven

An historic day in New Haven as Daria Gavrilova captured her first WTA title, defeating second seed Dominika Cibulkova after trailing by a set, and then down a break in the decider.

It's the only time that a player has chosen the Connecticut Open as the tournament to break through.

This was a great match, rated by no less than Pam Shriver as the best women's final of 2017.  Perhaps overstating things a little but it had plenty to please the crowd.

Set one included several momentum changes and seemed to depend on one particular end where neither player could hold serve through six games.

Two breaks of serve apiece after eight games until Gavrilova played a shocker, donating Cibulkova the chance to serve out the set, which she did accordingly.

Dasha was in a bad state mentally, and this was evident in the first moments of set two where her focus was all over the place.  Fortunately this lasted only long enough for her to survive the initial game on serve, which left her level at 1-1.

After a struggle to reach 2-2 Gavrilova's world became a whole lot brighter as she managed to break the Slovakian serve and lead.

Gavrilova broke again in the ninth game to win the set - important because it allowed her to serve first in the decider.

Set three was another roller coaster, with Cibulkova the first to make the break.  This was despite the fact that Gavrilova was creating more chances.

Both had dismal percentages of points won on their first serves, Cibulkova the worse.

Fighting hard, Gavrilova immediately broke back, the forehand a key weapon, and decisively won the remaining games for her historic victory.

4-6 6-3 6-4 was the score line, and both players can take heart from the week's work, knowing that the form is there for the US Open.

In North Carolina, Roberto Bautista Agut confirmed his top seeding by convincingly defeating unseeded Damir Dzumhur in the final of the Winston-Salem Open.

The 6-4 6-4 victory took an hour and an half, but could have been quicker had Roberto converted more of the 13 break points he built up over the match.  Five sufficed but considering Dzumhur used all of his 3 to advantage, Bautista Agut needs to be more efficient in future.

After the final Roberto moves up two spots to his previous career high ranking of 13, while Damir jumps 11 places to a new career high of 56.

The US Open sees five of the top eleven world ranked men not playing due to injury, including last years finalists.