This season is one of the most successful in Ekaterina Alexandrova’s career. In February she reached her highest place in the world ranking: sixteenth, and in June she won her “favorite” tournament in Hertogenbosch, defending last year’s title.
Then in the game, Alexandrova suffered a slight relegation. Ekaterina’s performance in Cincinnati overall left a rather sad impression: she went flying after the first round, losing outright to Romanian Sorana Kyrsta. Therefore, her prospects on the Cleveland courts seemed ambiguous.
However, Ekaterina began to confidently move up the tournament grid. She lost her first game in Cleveland only in the quarterfinals. All other matches up to the decider Aleksandrova ended in straight sets. The rival of the Russian tennis player in the fight for the fifth trophy of her career was Sarah Sorribes-Tormo.
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The appearance of the Spaniard in the final is perhaps the main sensation of this tournament. Sorribes-Tormo entered the main draw as a lucky underdog, losing in the last qualifying match. But his subsequent path showed that it was a bit premature to give Alexandrova the win beforehand. Sarah managed to knock out both third seed Veronika Kudermetova and the more experienced American Sloan Stevens, who had never beaten our young star Mirra Andreeva before, from the trophy fight. So Catherine had to approach this game with the most serious attitude.
The start of the match confirmed that the Spaniard was not going to give up at the mercy of the winner. Already in the first game, Sorribes-Tormo took Alexandrova’s serve. True, Ekaterina immediately made a reverse break, and then left the set behind. But the feeling that Sarah had not yet said the last word about her in this ending stubbornly did not go away.
The debut of the second installment was left in the hands of the Russian tennis player. And in the fifth game he again played very well at the reception and was close to his precious goal. But Sorribes-Tormo was not the first time in this tournament that he was able to add during the match, and Alexandrova began to have problems. The confident 4:2 very quickly turned into 4:6, and the third set was waiting for the rivals.
The decisive game was a logical continuation of this game of missed chances for Ekaterina. She again was able to take the opponent’s serve from her, but in the end she didn’t even make it to the tie-break. 4: 6-and the Spanish could not believe her luck. After taking off in the qualifying phase, she ended up staying in the tournament until the end. Sarah’s birthday is just in October, but this year she already received the main gift from her.
