Down a match point in the first round, it wasn't looking like her tournament. But Marion Bartoli never stopped believing and after surviving Lucie Safarova she kept on going, and Saturday she toughed out a 6-1 4-6 7-5 win over another Czech lefty, Petra Kvitova, for her first grass court title at the Premier-level AEGON International in Eastbourne.
In her first grass court final but a semifinalist at Wimbledon last year, the No.5-seeded Kvitova used her big power game to push the match to a third, right to 5-all - but Bartoli broke and served it out, Kvitova misfiring a forehand to end it.
Kvitova compiled the bigger numbers in the final with 40 winners and 41 errors (Bartoli had 14 winners and 20 errors). But Bartoli had bigger numbers on the bigger points (5/11 on break points compared to 3/10 for Kvitova).
Bartoli captured her sixth WTA title and first on grass. It was her second Premier-level WTA title, following her win in Stanford in 2009. She has now won 13 of her last 15 matches going into the grass court major, Wimbledon.
Meanwhile in The Neatherlands, The two 28-year-olds had both pulled off upsets en route to the final, the No.7-seeded Vinci taking out both No.3 seed Yanina Wickmayer and No.5 seed Dominika Cibulkova and Dokic beating No.4 seed Flavia Pennetta.
The final was tight from the start, with an early exchange of breaks followed by neither player budging in their service games. Dokic held set points at 5-4 and 6-5; Vinci saved them all and eventually got her own at 6-5 in the tie-break but it was not to be and Dokic finally converted on her fifth set point at 8-7.
Vinci rebounded with a 6-3 second set and broke for a chance to serve out the match at 5-4 in the third; Dokic broke back but Vinci broke again and served it out at 6-5, squandering three match points from 40-0 up but grabbing the fourth
On the day it was the all-court game that overcame, as Roberta Vinci edged Jelena Dokic, 6-7 6-3 7-5
2 comments:
OMG, seems that Kvitova had issues finding the court in that match. If she wont cut down that number of errors she wont get far in Wimbledon. Certainly not when she comes across Wozniacki "the wall".
Kvitova definatly struggled I think, perhaps it was the wind, either way she will need to watch out with dangerous players lurking in her draw.
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