Gisela Dulko defeats Parra Santonja to win the Abierto Mexicano Women’s title
World number 56, Gisela Dulko bagged her fourth Women’s Tennis Association title of her career by defeating Arantxa Parra Santonja of Spain in the final of the Abierto Mexicano Telcel on Saturday night.
The Argentine took one hour and forty five minutes to outplay her competitor in straight sets 6-3, 7-6.
A brilliant combination of Dulko’s crafty game and Santonja’s power hitting in the match provided exhilarating contest to watch. It was a low serve match but both women exhibited brilliant tennis skills. The opening set was more dominated by Dulko but the
following set was hard fought for both contestants.
Dulko had a first serve percentage of 59, with Santonja serving at 48 per cent. A total of 145 points were played in the contest with Dulko winning 76 and Santonja bagging 69. Both women committed a number of double-faults as well.
The Argentine was very proactive in winning her serve points. Dulko won 25 out of 41 first serve points while her opponent had 39 per cent winning rate. Although Dulko won the match, she squandered a lot of opportunities during the match. She was bestowed
with 15 break chances in the match but converted just eight out of them. Dulko saved just two break points out of eight chances.
Santonja was far better with her baseline defence, as she denied her opponent of seven break chances. She was a bit sloppy to kick off the contest and lost her nerve early in the game. Her opponent capitalised upon her weakness to get her eye in the game.
“Finals are always special and we were both nervous in the first set, but after that I was playing much better,” Dulko commented. “All of a sudden I started to get a bit nervous again and Arantxa started playing so well. At the end I ended up winning, so
I’m really happy.”
Dulko converted a mere 52 per cent of her total serve points in the first set but she was still far better than Santonja’s 39 per cent. An early exchange of serve breaks was witnessed from both contestants in the opener, as Dulko cracked four serve breaks
in reply to Santonja’s two. Good error-free tennis from the Argentine sealed the first set for her at 6-3.
Santonja’s first serve fell drastically low to 38 per cent in the following set, allowing her Argentine opponent to stung a double-break to get the set under her control at 5-1. It looked as if nothing was left for Santonja in the game, but the momentum
swung dramatically in favour of the Spanish. She clinched five straight games to take the set at 6-5.
The tide turned again as Dulko won eight consecutive points to impose a decisive tie breaker at 6-6. A mini-break in the start put her in the lead by 3-0 and it was never a difficult task for the Argentine to seal the second set at 7-6.
Dulko has an impressive 4-4 career final record as she won her fourth WTA title at the Abierto Mexicano. She is the first Argentine women to win this tournament.
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