Paris: German Mona Barthel took out top seed Sara Errani 7-5, 7-6(4) to win her second career title — and first at a Premier-level event. She is now 2-1 in finals, with her other title coming at Hobart in 2012. Russian Elena Vesnina stopped Barthel from taking the title this year, knocking out the defending champion in the final.
“When I came here [to Paris] I wasn’t expecting to win the title at all,” said Barthel, who is the second German to win the title in the past two years (Kerber chose not to defend). “I was just taking it round by round, hoping to win the first round, then hoping to win the second round, and so on. When I got to the final I knew it would be tough, because Sara had such an amazing year last year and is playing so well – she just doesn’t give anything away.”
Errani did not leave empty-handed, teaming with Roberta Vinci to take the doubles trophy over the team of Hlavackova and Huber. The 6-1, 6-1 victory gave the Italian duo their 15th career title as a team.
More: Kirilenko wins Pattaya and Davis Cup rubbers — after the cut…
Pattaya: Asian sensation Maria Kirilenko wins her sixth career title — and fourth in Asian tournaments — with her defeat of Sabine Lisicki 5-7, 6-1, 7-6(1) in the final of the PTT Pattaya Open. “I hadn’t been in a final in a while,” said Lisicki of this effort — her last appearance in a final was at the Birmingham event in 2011 — “so even though it’s a tough one to lose, I still feel very good about my week.” Lisicki seems to have not been able to get her bearings since losing a tight match against Angelique Kerber in the 2012 Wimbledon quarterfinals.
Meanwhile, busy bee (and record-setter) Kimiko Date-Krumm teamed with Casey Dellacqua to beat Amanmuradova and Panova 6-3, 6-2.
Davis Cup: We didn’t expect that we’d have to pay too much attention to Davis Cup on Sunday (the Beyonce halftime show would be just the right dose of sports excitement for one day), but most of these rubbers came down to the wire: Czech Republic over Switzerland (valiant effort by Stan Wawrinka), Brazil(!) over the U.S. — including the first DC loss for the Bryans, in the hands of Melo and Soares. More: Davis Cup first-round results.
(Photo Credit: Open GDF Suez; Pattaya image via PTT Pattaya Open)
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