Two of the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour's brightest young stars went to battle in the Tashkent Open final on Sunday.
It was Sorana Cirstea who rose to the top on this occasion, coming back from the brink in the third set and edging Sabine Lisicki in a third set tie-break to capture her first title at the Tier IV event.
"I'll cherish the title in Tashkent forever as it is my first title; I was desperate to take my first title!" Cirstea added.
"I've been improving a lot since my first final, and I'm looking for many more titles. I'm also extremely happy to wear the traditional Uzbek dress, which has become the trademark of this event."
Cirstea was a runner-up in her first career final, losing to Gisela Dulko in three sets on the clay courts of Budapest last spring.
But it was second time lucky in Tashkent this year, as the 18-year-old came back from the brink to emphatically beat her 19-year-old opponent, who was playing in her first career final.
"I made some mistakes and missed too many easy shots; it was my first final and I'm happy to have come so far, but I'm sad to lose," Lisicki said.
"Although I might have missed a lot of shots today, in the future these shots will be my weapons. My goal is to be a Top 10 player and I'm going to work even harder."
With Cirstea, Lisicki and Peng all reaching the semifinals, the only Top 4 seed not reaching the semifinals was No.2 seed Olga Govortsova.
In her stead it was No.5 seed Magdalena Rybarikova who reached the final four before retiring against Cirstea due to illness after dropping the first set, 6-3.
Also making noise in Tashkent was Portuguese phenom Michelle Larcher de Brito, who reached a Tour quarterfinal for the first time in her very green career.
The doubles final took the court on Saturday as well, with Ioana Raluca Olaru and Olga Savchuk beating Nina Bratchikova and Kathrin Woerle in a match tie-break, 5-7, 7-5, 10-7.
Both Olaru and Savchuk picked up their first Tour titles of any kind; and while Olaru had reached one Tour doubles final - at Budapest earlier this year, finishing runner-up - Savchuk was playing her first Tour final of any kind.
(Via sonyericssonwtatour.com, Image via Yahoo! Sport)
Dmitry Tursunov captured the Open de Moselle title on Sunday with a three-set victory over French crowd favorite Paul-Henri Mathieu.
The fifth-seeded Tursunov notched a 7-6 (8-6), 1-6, 6-4 triumph for his fifth career title and second of 2008.
He also won in Sydney at the start of the season, and Sunday's win improved his career finals record to 5-2. One of those losses came in July at Indianapolis.
Mathieu, seeded fourth, was playing in his first final of the year and the seventh of his career. He fell to 4-3 in title matches, last winning a tournament last year in Gstaad.
The victory was worth $82,000 for Tursunov, who was born in Moscow and resides in California.
He improved to 2-0 lifetime against Mathieu, also winning a three-set match at the Queen's Club in 2007.
Frenchmen Arnaud Clement and Michael Llodra retained their Open de Moselle title after defeating top seeded Poles Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski 5-7, 6-3, 10-8 in a repeat of the 2007 final.
“I am playing with a lot of confidence and I played some good tennis this week.”
Jankovic was assured of taking the top ranking Monday from Serena Williams regardless of the outcome of the final.
She already held the No. 1 spot for one week in August.
“I feel that every day I am getting better and better. I am really working on my game, I want to reach my full potential,” Jankovic said.
Williams became the No. 1 after defeating Jankovic at the U.S. Open final, but the American will drop in the rankings after losing her opening match in Stuttgart.
Jankovic won her eighth career title after overcoming a brief lapse in the second set against the 18th-ranked Russian, who won the Stuttgart tournament in 2006.
After the win, Jankovic took a spin in the red Porsche 911 convertible given to the winner and appeared to have more trouble controlling the powerful car than the match.
She broke serve in the opening game and it was enough to give her the set against an error-prone Petrova.
“I really wanted to win this trophy, and when you want too much, sometimes it doesn’t work in tennis,” Petrova said.
“I gave it my best.”
Petrova had not dropped a set this week until the final.
Jankovic has been playing with a painful left foot after tearing off a toe nail. She needed painkiller shots before her semifinal win over Venus Williams and got two more before the final.
Asked about her foot at the post-match news conference, Jankovic misunderstood the question and replied, “The food is great.”
Realizing the mistake, Jankovic burst out laughing and then added:
“It’s numb during the match and I don’t feel anything, but after a couple of hours it hurts a lot,” she said.
“The doctor told me to wear flip-flops but I am flying to Serbia tonight, I can’t go in flip-flops like I am going to the beach.”
Jankovic is scheduled to play the Kremlin Cup next week. Although she left open whether she would actually show up in Moscow for the tournament, which Williams is skipping.
“I feel tired now, but mentally I am not tired, I am hungry to do well. I want to finish the year as No. 1,” she said.
The doubles final, which followed the singles final, saw top seeds Kveta Peschke and Rennae Stubbs taking on the wildcard pairing of Patty Schnyder and Anna-Lena Groenefeld.
And it was the underdogs who came out on top, as Groenefeld and Schnyder won their first title together with a 62 64 upset victory.
Groenefeld won her seventh career Tour doubles title, and first since the beginning of 2007; Schnyder picked up her fifth Tour doubles title, her first since early 2004.
Ninth seed Tomas Berdych powered past Argentina's Juan Martin Del Potro in straight sets to win the Japan Open, his first ATP title of the season.
In the women's competition, top seed Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark battled to a 6-2 3-6 6-1 win over Kaia Kanepi of Estonia to claim her third WTA title of the year.
Berdych, who shocked American second seed Andy Roddick and third seed Fernando Gonzalez on his way to the final, surprisingly had a one-sided 6-1, 6-4 victory over the fifth-seeded Del Potro.
"In this condition and at this level of tennis, I think the most important thing is to... just be 100 percent on the court - then the results can come," said the 23-year-old Czech.
"I think it happened to me this week and I'm very happy for that. I'm really happy to win here, especially here in Tokyo, I hope I will be here next year."
Berdych, currently ranked 27th in the world, said his goal was to finish 2008 in or near the top 10.
Del Potro - ranked 12th after a blistering summer during which he won four titles - appeared to be off form, taking an injury time out during the first set and another before the start of the second set. Del Potro said he had taken some medication, but did not blame the loss on his illness, saying:
"He played much better than me. I was feeling confused (by his play), but he did a great match."
"After the first set I started to play a little better, but it was too late."
It was Berdych's first title since winning at Halle in June last year, and his fourth overall, after victories at Palermo in 2004 and Paris in 2005.
On the women's side, the 18-year-old Wozniacki added to her 2008 success, after winning in Stockholm and New Haven in August.
"I feel amazing. I just won another tournament. It's been an incredible year. This is my first title here in Japan and I'm very happy," said a jubilant Wozniacki, ranked 16th against Kanepi's 33rd.
"I think I improved a lot last year."
Leander Paes and Lukas Dlouhy's bid for a second successive ATP title ended in disappointment after the top seeds were stunned by the Russian-German pair of Mikhail Youzhny and Mischa Zverev in the finals of AIG Japan Open in Tokyo today.
The unseeded Youzhny and Zverev beat the Indo-Czech pair 6-3, 6-4 to capture their second ATP title together.
It is the second time this year that Youzhny and Zverev have combined to deny Paes and Dlouhy a title win, having also done so when they claimed their maiden ATP title at Halle in June. (Via news.theage.com.au, Images via Yahoo! Sport, zimbio.com)
