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Top seed Patty Schnyder captured her
10th career title on Sunday, winning her first title in
the United States at the Western & Southern Financial
Group Women's Open in Cincinnati.
Schnyder capped off a fantastic week
of play in the Midwest, defeating Japan's Akiko Morigami
in the championship match, 64 60. Schnyder needed just 1
hour, 9 minutes in the final to win her second Sony
Ericsson WTA Tour title of the season.
The Swiss player said it was nice to
capture her first title in the United States, but to also
kick off the North American hard court season with a
title.
"I now have one win, one title,
which is important for the rest of the weeks," Schnyder
said. "It's a big win for me and it gives me a lot of
confidence."
Morigami started off the match on a
positive note, breaking Schnyder's serve from the start.
But the Japanese player wasn't able to keep the momentum
on her side as Schnyder grabbed the break right back.
After each player held serve for 2-2, Schnyder won the
next three games to go up 5-2.
With Morigami serving and trying to
stay in the first set, Schnyder had three chances to close
out the first set with a love-40 advantage. But Morigami
kept her cool to save all three set points and continued
to look strong in the next game to record her second break
of the match for 5-4.
After letting three set points
already slip away, Schnyder held two more set points on
Morigami's serve. She wasn't able to convert the first,
but was successful on the second to take the opening set,
6-4.
In the second set, there was little
Morigami could do to hold back the determined Schnyder.
The Swiss player swept through the set and captured the
title on her fourth match point.
"When my game is on, it looks like
this," said Schnyder on her dominating performance this
week. "It was definitely a lot of hard work this week.
There were a lot of good players here."
Schnyder put pressure on the
Japanese player's service game throughout the match,
winning more than half of the points on Morigami's first
serve and converting on six of the 19 break points she
held during the match.
Morigami had six opportunities for a
break during the match, but Schnyder's deadly service game
- which had been clocked as high as 117 mph during the
week - limited Morigami to just two breaks in the first
set.
"Patty obviously played great
against me," Morigami said. "She played very aggressive
and was controlling a lot of the points.
"She was mixing it up well. She was
putting balls high to my backhand, which I don't like and
was really playing a lot of different shots."
Schnyder's first visit to Cincinnati
turned into one she didn't regret. After a quick victory
against 15-year-old Danish wild card Caroline Wozniacki in
the first round, Schnyder rallied from set down to defeat
Aiko Nakamura in the second round. She then defeated
rising Israeli player Shahar Peer in the quarterfinals and
didn't face too many problems with her 64 61 win against
American qualifier Bethanie Mattek.
Schnyder said the title in
Cincinnati would move her closer to her goal of reaching
the season-ending Sony Ericsson WTA Tour Championships
presented by Porsche in November.
"It's a big goal of mine to reach
the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour Championships," Schnyder said.
"I want to be in the Top 8 and go to Los Angeles. It's
great to pick up points here and be closer to that goal."
Morigami was playing in her first
Tour final on Sunday after a week that included victories
against two of the tournament's top four seeds. She
defeated qualifier Cory Ann Avants in the first round and
then recorded a big upset with her straight sets win
against No.2 seed Vera Zvonareva. Though the path didn't
get any easier, the 25-year-old still managed to defeat
India's rising star, Sania Mirza, in the quarterfinals and
No.4 seed Daniela Hantuchova in the semifinals. |
