Qualifier Anastasia Potapova won her first WTA Tour title at the TEB BNP Paribas Tenis Championshp Istanbul after her her 6-3 6-1 win over Veronika Kudemertova in 1 hour and 23 minutes.
Potapova won eight consecutive games and 11 of the last 12 games from 1-3 down in the opening set. Potapova has become her first player to win her first WTA title. She has improved her 2022 win-loss record to 13-8.
Potapova was a former world junior number 1 and won the 2016 Wimbledon title. She finished runner-up to Olga Danilovic as a 17-year-old player at the 2018 Moscow River Cup and to Margarita Gasparyan in Tashkent in the same year.
Potapova reached her career high of number 64, but she underwent ankle surgery in 2020 and entered the Istanbul tournament outside the top 100. Her win over Kudemertova was her first victory since Dubai 2021, where she beat Madison Keys and Belinda Bencic.
Kudemertova earned an early break to open a 3-1 lead in the opening set. Potapova broke back in the sixth game to draw level to 3-3 and won the final five games to win the first set 6-3.
Potapova earned an early break in the first game after four deuces at the start of the second set. The Russian player went up a 3-0 lead with a double break. Kudemertova pulled one of the two breaks back in the fourth game, but Potapova won the final three games with two breaks of serve. Potapova becomes the second qualifier to win a WTA title in 2022 after Tatjana Maria’s title in Bogotà two weeks ago.
