Elisabetta Cocciaretto clinched her first career's WTA title by winning the WTA 250 Ladies Open Lausanne. The Italian has secured her maiden WTA trophy while overcoming Clara Burel in Sunday's final. Cocciaretto won the exciting final clash in three-sets with a score 7-5 4-6 6-4.
Road to the final
Cocciaretto was the highest seed of the tournament after the last minute withdrawal of Irina Camelia Begu. The Italian handled the pressure really well, especially knowing the circumstances, which happened on her bumpy road to the final. Cocciaretto was defending matchpoints in two out matches during the week in Switzerland. After denying an upset from the local player Celine Naef, who had a matchpoint during the second set of first round's match against the Italian, Cocciaretto survived another matchpoint faced in a semifinal played against Anna Bondar, which was an absolute thriller. Cocciaretto secured the spot in final after 3:26 hours of intense battle. The Hungarian won the opening set in tiebreak and had a chance to do so again in second set, while leading by 6-5 in the decisive game and having a matchpoint during own serve. Cocciaretto saved the scary and prolonged the match into whole distance. Bondar had her chances in third set as well, while leading with a break two times, but Cocciaretto came back from being 2-3* down and won the whole thing by 6-7(3) 7-6(6) 7-5.
Even the only one match, where Cocciaretto did not need to play all the three sets, was quite an unusual one. Elina Avanesyan was the Italian's opponent in the quarterfinal and started this match more than well, quickly moving into the lead by 5-0. Cocciaretto was committing a massive amount of unforced errors at this time, but after calibrating her game well enough, she took the initiative on her side and turned the first set over by winning 7 games in a row. Avanesyan did not regroup in second set after all, being a passive force till the end of a match, where Cocciaretto won by 7-5 6-3.
Clara Burel was definitely a more surprising finalist on paper, as the French was not seeded in Lausanne. The road into the final was much less bumpy for Burel, who gave away just one set before the final, during the all-French semifinal's clash against Diane Parry. Burel lost the opening set and was close to lose the whole match in straight sets, as both the players approached the tiebreak in second set. Parry did not use her chance, as Burel dominated the tiebreak, winning it by 7-2 and was the dominant force in third set, moving into the final with a score 4-6 7-6(2) 6-3 after breaking her fellowcountry's serve three times in decisive set.
Another comeback in the final
The Sunday's final was no much different for Elisabetta Cocciaretto, than all the previous matches in Lausanne, where she always prevailed after some long and exciting battle despite being down in the scoreline. The Italian has won the opening set this time, being more clinical in the decisive moments and clinching it by 7-5 after first hour of play. Second set was an even battle with a good serving performance from both till the score 3-3. Burel created two breakpoints in the decisive games and converted both to win the second set by 6-4. The French forced a decider, where she was the first one to move up front, as she broke her opponent in 5th game. The French was just two games away from the victory, while leading 4-2, needing just to focus on her service games till the end. The pressure was too much though, especially with another crunch time peak performed by Cocciaretto this week. The Italian won all the 4 following games and secured her first career's WTA title after 2:45 hours of the entertaining final clash.
Ranking movements
The new champion of Ladies Open Lausanne gains 12 spots to move up into her career's highest 30 place in the new WTA rankings. Clara Burel does also capitalize on her great run in Switzerland. Despite missing the chance to win the title just by a margin, the runner-up also reaches out her career's peak, as she advances from 84th into 61th place in the rankings. The semifinalists from Lausanne does also lift up in the WTA list, as Diane Parry moves up from 90th into 79th, while Anna Bondar gains 23 places to advance into 132th place.
