YONEX players, Angelique Kerber (VCORE Xi 100) and Ana Ivanovic (EZONE Ai 98), faced off at the Generali Ladies Linz final last week. Top-seeded Kerber captured her first title the season and her third of her career.
It was a thrilling first set filled with many great points on both sides of the net. Angelique played aggressively with her powerful groundstrokes, taking the initiative and a 4-1 lead, but Ivanovic equalized the score, 4-4, with her quick volley skills. In this rollercoaster ride of an opening set, Angelique put more pressure on Ana in capitalizing on more break chances and captured the set winning three of nine break points.
The #10 world ranked German was also steady in the next set. Although Ana displayed great fighting spirit by trying to save triple match points during the tenth game, Angelique finally overcame the Serbian player to claim the title.
Angelique expressed her delight after the match, “I was just trying to stay aggressive during the important moments and I think that was the biggest key to victory at the end. I'm really happy to win my first WTA tournament of the year here,” according to the WTA website.
Following her achievement in Linz, Angelique secured the eighth and final spot at next week’s TEB BNP Paribas WTA Championships - Istanbul.
*Players’ pictures were taken at the Toray PPO 2013.