19th October, 2014
Sixth seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia won the WTA title at the Kremlin Cup tournament in Moscow on Sunday, beating Romania’s Irina-Camelia Begu in the final.
The 23-year-old Pavlyuchenkova won 6-4, 5-7, 6-1 in two hours 28 minutes to record her second win over Begu, who is 61st in the WTA rankings, in as many meetings.
She also became the fourth Russian woman in the tournament’s history to win the Kremlin Cup after Anastasia Myskina (who won it twice in 2003 and 2004, Anna Chakvetadze (2006) and Elena Dementieva (2007).
The final got off to a nervy start that produced seven breaks of serve in the opening set before the 30th-ranked Pavlyuchenkova managed to settle down.
The Russian pocketed the set in 50 minutes, but it was Begu, playing in her fourth WTA Tour final, who dominated the second set to break serve twice and level the match.
In the deciding set Pavlyuchenkova again moved up a gear to break twice for a commanding 5-0 lead, taking her to the seventh title win of her career.
“It’s just the best possible way to finish the season,” Pavlyuchenkova said at the award ceremony.
“It was a really tough match. We were both fighting but somebody had to win. I just couldn’t have lost at home.”