Anabel Medina Garrigues outplays Polona Hercog to clinch title win – XXIV SNAI 2011
World number 34, Anabel Medina Garrigues of Spain took down the Slovenian competitor, Polona Hercog, to win the final of the Internazionali Femminili di Palermo on Sunday afternoon.
Being played at Palermo, Italy, the contest witnessed the fifth seeded Garrigues absolutely manhandling Hercog to win the WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) championship title in straight sets 6-3, 6-2. The seventh seeded Slovenian
hung in the contest for just one hour and twenty minutes of play before succumbing to the aggressive Spaniard in the second set.
The competition appeared pretty one-sided right from the beginning, with the Garrigues off to a flying start in the opener. Hercog was running a nine-match winning streak before her loss on Sunday, as she won her first ever WTA
title last week at Bastad. The Slovenian failed to put up a decent fight against the fifth seeded Spaniard and appeared in all sorts of confusions right from the beginning.
“I think Polona was a little bit tired, because she won in Bastad last week and made the final here too, but I played a really good match,” Medina Garrigues said after concluding her championship victory, “I was very serious today.
I was focusing on the tactics me and my coach talked about, and it worked. I'm also just trying to enjoy playing tennis and trying not to think about winning or losing, my ranking, or anything else. I just want to play my best on the court and because of that
I have been doing well.”
Garrigues served brilliantly with 74 per cent accuracy in the opening set and secured 11 first serve points, with Hercog doing the same. An early exchange of serve breaks was seen in the opener, followed by a series of forays from
the fifth seeded Spaniard, who cracked in two more consecutive break points to reach set point in a flash. The opening set fell to Garrigues’ name at 6-3, giving her a 1-0 lead in the contest.
Hercog sunk further in the second set and failed to bag sufficient points to contain her belligerent opponent. Garrigues dropped her serve once in the second set but nailed three serve breaks to the Slovenian serve to rocket away
to victory at 6-2, winning the Internazionali Femminili di Palermo title. A total of 102 points were played in the whole matchup, with Garrigues clinching 59 of them and Hercog following her with 43 to lose the title shot.
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