The French “L’Equipe” headlined it with “coronation” after the 29-year-old had recorded the greatest career success in Fort Worth, Texas. Because the road to victory at the unofficial tennis world championships was a long one for the 29-year-old. The oldest WTA finals winner since Serena Williams (33) looked back on this in the hour of triumph. “I’ve met a lot of people along the way. Some are here – some who met me as a 12-year-old girl and helped me become a better person and a better player,” said Garcia, visibly moved, the 1.57 Millions of dollars in prize money and 1375 world ranking points from Texas. It was only in September that the future fourth in the world rankings returned to the top ten after almost four years. At the beginning of June, Garcia, who had been slowed down by injuries for a long time, was only 79th.
First round defeats in a row
Before the Masters, Garcia lost three of her last four singles in Guadalajara, San Diego and Tokyo, but in general she celebrated great successes in the second half of the season: tournament victory on grass in Bad Homburg, semifinals on grass in Lausanne, tournament victory on clay in Warsaw, tournament victory on Hard court as a qualifier at the Masters 1000 tournament in Cincinnati, first semi-final qualification at a Grand Slam tournament, the US Open in New York.
Sabalenka was denied completion. The 24-year-old had defeated world number three, two and one on the way to the final with Jessica Pegula (USA), Ons Jabeur (Tun) and Iga Swiatek (Pol). She still tried to take the bitter final defeat with humor: “I’m not going to say thank you to my team because there were too many double faults, you’re a bad team – no, no, no, I’m joking,” she said after the game and three double faults. “Thank you for the support, it’s been a very demanding year.”
Source: Nachrichten
