Fourth-seeded Timea Babos yesterday defeated Kateryna Kozlova 7-5, 6-1 to win the singles final, while Chinese pair Duan Yingying and Wang Yafan fought to claim the doubles trophy at the Taiwan Open.
After a tight first set, Babos took control with a hard-hitting display to claim her third WTA singles trophy of her career at the Taipei Heping Basketball Gymnasium.
After dropping the first set, the 23-year-old Kozlova had a misstep serving at 1-0 in the second set, when she hit two unforced errors and a double fault to be broken right away.
Photo: Louis Chi, EPA
Babos pounced, holding serve for a commanding 3-0 lead.
Kozlova won the next game, but Babos held to go up 4-1 and broke her opponent again before serving for the win after 1 hour, 25 minutes.
Kozlova, contesting her first WTA final, had beaten Babos in their only previous meeting in the qualifying of the 2015 Qatar Total Open in Doha.
Babos added to previous title runs at the Abierto GNP Seguros in Monterrey in 2012 and the Hungarian Ladies Open in Budapest last year.
In the doubles, Duan and Wang pulled out a tough 7-6 (7/4), 7-6 (7/5) victory over Nao Hibino of Japan and Oksana Kalashnikova of Georgia.
The Chinese duo reached the final on Saturday after thrashing Taiwanese pair Chang Kai-chen and Chuang Chia-jung 6-0, 6-0 in just 44 minutes, quashing the local crowd’s hopes after Taiwan’s other doubles chance, top seeds Chan Hao-ching and partner Babos, fell to Hibino and Kalashnikova 6-2, 6-2 after 57 minutes in Saturday’s other semi-final.
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