Maria Sharapova claims Stuttgart WTA title
Crushes Li Na to retain Stuttgart clay court trophy
Stuttgart (Germany), April 28: Maria Sharapova beat Li Na 6-4, 6-3 on Sunday to defend her WTA Porsche Grand Prix title in a final that brought together the last two French Open champions.
The top-seeded Russian swept to her second title of the year after winning in Indian Wells, and became the first player to defend the Stuttgart title since Lindsey Davenport in 2005.
“I thought it’d be the toughest match of the tournament, but I played my best tennis today,” Sharapova said. “I was able to step it up.”
Sharapova used the Stuttgart tournament as her clay-court debut just like last season, when she went on to capture the French Open.
The second-seeded Li doublefaulted on match point and had another one earlier in the final game, as Sharapova collected the 29th title of her career — and a sports car to go with it.
“I was under pressure on her return, she was aggressive,” Li said. Sharapova, ranked No. 2 in the world, had to fight through three long three-setters to get to the championship match, but there was little drama in the final. The Russian opened with a break and went up 4-1 before Li could pull back one break. But that was not enough and Sharapova closed out the set with a service winner.
“I tried to put it together from the start,” Sharapova said.
Li, who became the first Chinese player to win a Grand Slam title with her victory at Roland Garros in 2011, simply didn’t have enough consistency to threaten Sharapova, and the Russian gained the key break in the seventh game of the second when Li sent a volley wide.
“I’m a little sad to lose but it’s a pretty good start to my claycourt season,” Li said.
SANIA-BETHANIE
FALTER IN FINAL
Sania Mirza and Bethanie Mattek-Sands will have to wait for their third title of the season as they ended runners-up at the WTA Porsche Tennis Grand Prix after losing the summit clash to Sabine Lisicki and Mona Barthel. Playing their third final of the season, the unseeded IndoAmerican pair lost 4-6, 5-7 in one hour and 33 minutes to the local favourites, who were unseeded wild card entrants.
Sania and Bethanie had won Brisbane and Dubai events early in the year.
With this result, Sania and Bethanie earned 320 ranking points each and split euro 17,046 as prize money.
Sania and Bethanie had their chances in the match as they earned four break chances in the opening set but could convert none. They saved two chances but one break of serve was enough to hand advantage to their rivals.
In the second set they trailed 13 and had the chance to level the scores in the sixth game but they squandered their fifth chance of the set to allow the Germans go ahead 4-2.
ROSOL CLINCHES
MAIDEN CROWN
Lukas Rosol of the Czech Republic beat Spain’s Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-3, 6-2 to win the BRD Nastase Tiriac Trophy for his first ATP title. Rosol completed an impressive run in brushing aside Garcia-Lopez in 67 minutes, converting four of his nine break points to secure the victory. The No. 48-ranked Rosol overcame three seeded players including three-time champion Giles Simon. — AP, PTI