Sun shines for career best victory
Lulu Sun has claimed the biggest title of her career, winning the $100,000 World Tennis Tour tournament in Bonita Springs, Florida.
In yesterday’s final against American Maya Joint, Sun produced one of her most impressive performances of the week, winning 6-1, 6-3.
Sun had won six WTT tournaments previously — one W80 title, a W50, a W25 and three W15s — but this victory stands out as the best of the 23-year-old’s career.
Seeded No 2 for the tournament, Sun went in as one of the favourites and she showed she was able to handle the expectation that goes with that. In the final against 18-year-old Joint, Sun won 83 per cent of the points when she got her first serve in and managed to break her opponent five times.
Sun is anticipated to climb to a career-high world ranking of around 132 by winning in Bonita Springs, which takes her closer to making it onto the direct acceptance lists for Grand Slams.
After winning the singles at this tournament, Sun was back on court later in the day for the doubles final, where she and Hungarian partner Fanny Stollar defeated Valentini Grammatikopoulou from Greece and Ukraine’s Valeriya Strakhova 6-4, 7-5.
That capped a perfect day for Te Anau-born Sun, who this year switched allegiance from Switzerland to New Zealand.
Sun’s doubles ranking is expected to improve by about 100 spots to take her to around 323 when the rankings are next released.
Meanwhile in Colombia, KP Pannu lost the first M25 singles final of his career to local Nicolas Mejia 6-2, 6-2 yesterday.
Pannu won his semifinal over three sets against Zimbabwe’s Benjamin Lock, who is ranked more than 180 places higher than him.