Second seed Roberta Vinci won the inaugural St Petersburg Ladies Trophy on Sunday by beating top seed Belinda Bencic in straight sets.
The Italian toppled the 18-year-old Swiss, ranked 11th in the world, 6-4, 6-3 in 1 hour, 19 minutes to claim her 10th WTA Tour singles title and her first since 2013.
“It was much tougher than the scoreline suggests,” Vinci said. “I had to stay focused on every single point, but I think I served really well today and that was probably the key.”
Photo: EPA
Vinci had previously decided to hang up her racket after this season, but she has not ruled out delaying her retirement a little longer.
Asked if she planned to play on for a few years, Vinci said: “No, two, three years, no. One more, but maybe. Why not?”
World No. 16 Vinci looked in good form from the start.
The 32-year-old doubles specialist broke twice in the opening set, but Bencic, who broke into the world’s top 10 for the first time yesterday, hit back on both occasions to level at 4-4.
Last year’s US Open runner-up Vinci grabbed the deciding break in the 10th game to claim the first set in 44 minutes.
In the second set just one break in the fourth game was enough to seal victory in the first ever meeting between the two players.
Earlier, Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza extended their winning streak to 40 consecutive matches as they beat Vera Dushevina and Barbora Krejcikova 6-3, 6-1 in the doubles final.
The Swiss-Indian duo dropped just one set in four matches in St Petersburg.
They are on course to match the record victory series of Jana Novotna and Helena Sukova, who managed 44 consecutive matches.
“We’re obviously very happy to win another title, but now that we’re coming closer and closer to the next target of 44 we can’t help but think about it,” Mirza said.
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