Francesca Schiavone overwhelms Lourdes Dominguez Lino in the title match – Grand Prix de SAR 2013
Italian veteran, Francesca Schiavone, finally broke her title drought of the 2013 WTA season in Marrakech by winning the Grand Prix de SAR La Princess Lalla Meryem on Sunday. The world number 37 took down the surprise finalist,
Lourdes Dominguez Lino, in straight sets, 6-1, 6-3, to lift her sixth career WTA championship trophy.
The 32-year-old has been poorly performing this year prior to her arrival at Marrakech. She entered the WTA clay-court tournament with poise and devastated her every opponent in a convincing manner, beating all of them in straight
sets. She was tested a little by Lino in the second set of the match but Schiavone used tons of experience to manoeuvre her way to victory in the end. This triumph also improves her winning record to 10-9 for the running season. The sixth seeded Italian was
ecstatic on her championship victory and hopes more to come in the remaining WTA season.
"This was a great week for me after a long, very difficult period," Schiavone said. "I think my two toughest matches of the week were my first match against Martic, a very talented young player, and of course today against Lourdes.
I played a really complete game today. It's never easy to play her. To win here is a great start to the clay court season for me and inspires me to keep working hard. I want to give many thanks to everyone who helped make this tournament happen. It's the
first year in Marrakech, and the first year is always difficult, but the tournament was fantastic and I felt like I was at home."
Schiavone had a fiery start to the opening set of the match and nailed two quick break points to rocket away to an unassailable lead of 5-1. Lino missed out a couple of break opportunities in the set and eventually submitted at
1-6.
The following set witnessed an exchange of break points from both players in the fourth and fifth games, dragging the score line to 3-3. Schiavone shifted her gears from there onwards and stung two consecutive breaks of serve to
conclude her big win at 6-3.
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