Kontaveit races to straight sets WTA Ostrava tournament victory

Anett Kontaveit has won her second WTA tournament in a month by beating world number 12 Maria Sakkari (Greece) in straight sets, 6:2, 7:5, in Ostrava, the Czech Republic, in a near-flawless performance which lasted a little over an-hour-and-a-half.
The win is only Kontaveit's third WTA triumph in her career so far, and follows her win in Cleveland in late August.
Kontaveit started working with a new coach, former player Dmitry Tursunov, last month.
The Estonian, 25, from Tallinn, said of her win that: "I still can't believe it, it was such a good week for me."
She was also full of praise for her opponent.
"First, of course, I would like to congratulate Maria and her team on such a great year: I've watched your matches, I've cheered for you from the TV, and I'm really happy that you're doing so well, and I have so much respect for you on and off the court, I think you're an amazing person. Like you said, we started the year in quarantine in Australia, talking to each other every day and trying to keep ourselves sane in the hotel room."
"We've played each other quite a few times, but you known I'm just so happy we get to share the court, and congrats to you," Kontaveit continued, going on to thank her team, coach, family and friends.
A video of the match highlights and post-match comment is below.
Kontaveit's route to the final saw her overcoming Sorana Cirstea of Romania, ranked 37th in the world, Paula Bodosa (Spain, 27th) and Belinda Bencici (Switzerland, 11th), all in straight sets. The Estonian repeated the feat in the semi-finals after beating world number 10 Petra Kvitova, in front of a home crowd.
The final saw Kontaveit start commandingly, with a 3:1 lead, breaking Sakkari's serve once more while the latter only got to win one more game in set one. Kontaveit played almost flawlessly, and only dropped two of her first serves, while committing three simple errors.
Things were a bit more evenly-matched in the second set, with the Estonian having to rescue a break point in game one, and with the score in games standing at 6:5, Kontaveit raced to 40:0 in the final game, winning off the first available set and match point.
The entire encounter lasted a little over 90 minutes.
Kontaveit served up two aces, had a 78 percent success rate on her first serve and won 76 percent of points on her first serve – in the first set alone, this figure stood at 93 percent.
Sakkari served up three aces, committed one double fault and had a 67 percent success rate on her first serve.
The Estonian converted three of four break points; Sakkari had only one break point in her favor, which Kontaveit rescued early on in the second set.
Kontaveit should see her WTA ranking improve on its current 30th place. Her career-high ranking is 14th, which she attained in April 2019, while the only other WTA tournament she won came at the Ricoh Open in 2017.
She also reached the final of the Eastbourne Tournament in England in June, losing to Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia
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Editor: Andrew Whyte