TENNIS – Alizé Cornet from France overcame a hard-fought battle against young Italian Camila Giorgi in the final of the BNP Paribas WTA Katowice Open to clinch her fourth title. Giorgi, who played her first ever WTA final, came back from being on verge of losing the match twice before failing to convert a match point in a hard-fought and exciting final. Diego Sampaolo
WTA Katowice. Cornet and Giorgi met for the second time in their careers. Their first match was played at this year’s Australian Open where the Frenchwoman recovered from 1-4 down in the third set to beat the Italian in two hours and 36 minutes.
in the first set Giorgi got a early break but she was broken back before getting a second break. She finally managed to hold serve at 3-1. The Italian of Argentine origin held her nerve and saved two set points at 4-5 with two forehand winners.
Giorgi faced another set point at 6-5 but managed to save it with an ace forcing the first set to the tie-break. Giorgi went up 3-1 in the tie-break but Cornet reeled off six consecutive points to clinch the tie-break with 7-3 on her fourth set point after 69 minutes.
Giorgi, who reached two Grand Slam fourth round at Wimbledon 2012 and at the US Open 2013, went down a break and was just two points from dropping the ninth game at 3-5 down but won this delicate game. Cornet served for the match but Giorgi broke serve to love before earning her first set point at 6-5. Giorgi won the 4th consecutive game to clinch the second set to force the match to the third set.
Giorgi made the second double fault of her match at 40-40 in the first game of the third set. Cornet stormed to a a 3-0 lead with a break of serve but Giorgi broke back to reel off five of the next six games to take a 5-4 lead to earn a match point. Cornet saved the match point to draw level to 5-5 before breaking serve to to love at 6-5 to clinch the third set with 7-6(3) 5-7 7-5 after 3 hours and 11 minutes. It was the fifth longest WTA match of the year. Cornet lifted the fourth of her career after Budapest 2008, Bad Gastein 2012 and Strasbourg 2013 to follow in the footsteps of another Italian player Roberta Vinci who won last year. The Frenchwoman will move up to World Number 21 in the WTA Ranking.
Cornet qualified for the final after a sensational semifinal win against Agnieszka Radwanska on Saturday when she recovered from a bagel in the first set to win in three sets with 0-6 6-2 6-4. Radwanska stormed to a 3-0 lead in the third set and got a point for 4-0 before Cornet recovered by reeling off six consecutive games after an epic match. Cornet scored her second win against a top-4 player after sensationally beating Serena Williams in the Dubai semifinal two months ago.
Giorgi played her first ever WTA final after beating two top-20 players, defending Katowice champion Roberta Vinci and Carla Suarez Navarro for the second time in the same tournament after Wimbledon in 2012. Before Katowice she had never reached a WTA quarter final. The young Italian coached by her father Sergio will move up to World Number 53 reaching her best ranking.
Giorgi beat two former World Number 1 players Caroline Wozniacki at the 2013 US Open and Maria Sharapova at the 2014 BNP Paribas Open. She will make her second Fed Cup appearance next week in the semifinal against Czech Republic. Her father Sergio comes from Argentina and emigrated to Italy. He fought in the Falklands War. Her mother Claudia is a fashion designer who designs her tennis outfits.
“What a match. It was definitely a huge fight, which is what I expected. I had to save a match point to win the title, so it feels very special”, said Cornet.
