Familiar form

Roger Federer proves he’s back, nailing down fifth Indian Wells title

“He’s the best player ever, so we are used to losing against him,” Wawrinka said.

Vesnina had never advanced beyond the third round in singles and just last year she lost in the first round of qualifying, although she has won three doubles titles at the tournament. She beat No 2 seed Angelique Kerber and No 12 seed Venus Williams on her way to the biggest final of her career at age 30.

At age 31, Kuznetsova was thefifth-oldestwomantoreach the final. But the two-time major champion struggled playing with the lead as the No 8 seed.

“I didn’t feel good today because she was very aggressive and I was a little bit out of my game,” Kuznetsova said. “I couldn’t figure out the wind and stuff like that.”

Kuznetsova led 4-2 in the third before 14th-seeded Vesnina broke her twice in sweeping the final four games of the match.

Kuznetsova served one of her nine aces to lead 4-1 in the second, prompting Vesnina to bring out her coach-father Sergey Vesnin for a chat. It worked. Vesnina reeled off four straight games to lead 5-4. Her forehand error led to Kuznetsova’sbreakinthe10thgamethat tied it 5-all.

But Vesnina broke back and served out the set 7-5.

“She had so many break points on my serve,” Vesnina said.“Shewas30-loveupacouple of times on her serves, and I always kept coming back.”

Kuznetsova had luck on her side early, winning the first set on a net cord in the tiebreaker. She gave the traditional wave acknowledging her good fortune to Vesnina, who had blown leads of 2-0 and 4-2.

Vesnina had 46 winners and 49 unforced errors.

She successfully gambled at the net, winning 24 of 32 points during the three-hour match.

Vesnina earned her third career singles title and will move up two spots to a careerhigh No 13 in this week’s world rankings.