Beatriz Haddad Maia’s name resonated the loudest at the end of the WTA Elite Trophy on Sunday, after the singles and doubles finals. The 27-year-old won the singles title against Qinwen Zheng 7-6(11), 7-6(4). The match ended nine minutes before the clock hit three hours.
The match had a few service breaks despite it eventually got wrapped up in tie-breaks. Not much separated the two players, when it came to winning first-serve points. Haddad Maia won 69% of her first-serve points while her opponent won 70%. Zheng let in Haddad Maia when it came to winning second-serve return points with the latter winning 56% of second-serve return points. On her own second serve, the Brazilian won 12 of 24 points played.
In the first set, Haddad Maia needed four set points to gain the lead over the home favourite. The latter, too, had a trio of set points but Haddad Maia was successful in thwarting all of them. In the second set, 21-year-old Zheng did well to prevent her older rival from serving out the match in the 10th game. But she never once reached set point in the set even as Haddad Maia finished off the second set tie-break, relatively quickly.
WTA Elite Trophy: Beatriz Haddad Maia sparkles
This week has been quite a turnaround for the world no. 19 who injured her fingers and hands right before her campaign at the Guadalajara Open was to start. She also ended up missing the Mexican WTA 1000 event as a result. For this year, this is also the first time Haddad Maia’s won a WTA title. Overall, this is the third time she’s won a title in her career.
Throughout the course of the WTA Elite Trophy, Beatriz Haddad Maia also didn’t cede a set to any of her rivals in the singles draw. In the doubles draw, too, she and Veronika Kudermetova made their way to lifting the title without ceding a set. In the final against the Japanese and Indonesian combo of Miyu Kato and Aldila Sutjiadi, Haddad Maia and Kudermetova prevailed 6-3, 6-3 in 72 minutes.
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