Belinda Bencic won 70.9 percent of her first-serve points and produced a 6-1, 5-7, 6-4 victory over Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur to win the Charleston Open on Sunday afternoon in South Carolina.
The 10th-seeded Bencic held off the fourth-seeded Jabeur in two hours and 35 minutes on the green clay in Charleston. It is the first clay-court crown and sixth overall WTA title for Bencic, who also won the Olympic gold medal last summer.
Bencic is the first Swiss woman to win in Charleston since Hall of Famer Martina Hingis in 1999. The 25-year-old has won 10 of her past 11 matches.
Jabeur, who had four aces and four double faults, was looking to win her second WTA title.
Copa Colsanitas
Germany’s Tatjana Maria, ranked No. 237 in the world, recorded a 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 victory over Brazil’s Laura Pigossi in a battle of qualifiers to win the Copa Colsanitas at Bogota, Colombia.
Maria had six aces while winning her second career title in two hours and 30 minutes. The 34-year-old missed time last year after the birth of her second daughter.
The 27-year-old Pigossi, ranked 212th, had a 23-19 edge in winners but committed 30 unforced errors to Maria’s 13. The final was the first ever on the WTA Tour featuring two players ranked higher than No. 200.
–Field Level Media