She may be ranked No.3 in the world, but she’s now No.1 on the match wins list this year – Agnieszka Radwanska pulled out a tight first set then rolled past Simona Halep for her 36th match win of the year on Saturday – as well as the Premier-level Brussels Open crown.
The top-seeded Radwanska didn’t lose a set en route to the final and kept that trend going one more time, though it wasn’t easy. Halep actually served for the first set at 5-4 – but Radwanska rolled from there, winning nine games in a row, and the last 10 points, for a 75 60 victory over the tenacious Romanian.
“On clay I think I need longer to warm up, not just the five minutes before the match,” Radwanska said afterwards. “At the end I won nine games in a row – it was a good comeback, I think. And it’s always great to win a tournament.
“I’m happy to get some good preparation in ahead of the French Open.”
Radwanska now has three Premier titles in 2012, having won Dubai and Miami, and now has 36 match wins on the year, one ahead of Victoria Azarenka.
Halep had a career week in Brussels, upsetting two seeds (Jelena Jankovic and Dominika Cibulkova) to reach her third and by far biggest final – she is now 0-3 in WTA finals, having been a runner-up at Fès in 2010 and 2011.
“I had some chances in the first set on my serve and I didn’t take them,” Halep said. “But it was my first Premier final and I’m really happy for it. I improved a lot this week and had some good wins against some tough players.
“I really like it here in Brussels and I want to come back.”
The doubles final was played earlier, with No.4 seeds Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Sania Mirza beating No.3 seeds Alicja Rosolska and Zheng Jie, 63 62, for their second title together (they also won Cincinnati in 2007). It was Mattek-Sands’ 10th WTA doubles title, while Mirza collected her 14th.
“It’s great to win our second tournament back together – last week we were unlucky to play the No.1 seeds in the second round,” Mirza said. “We had tough opponents today – when you come into a final your opponents are there because they’ve been playing well all week, so we just tried to get the important points and then concentrate on staying ahead when we were ahead.
“It’s a great win and gives us a lot of confidence going into Paris.”
The team was asked what other memories they’ll leave with. “The chocolate,” Mattek-Sands said. “We’ve been doing extra fitness so we could have it!”
