Tennis - Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova won her second tour title of the season, beating Spain's Carla Suárez Navarro 7-5, 6-2 to win the WTA Portugal Open on Saturday.
This was her first tour title on clay and the fifth overall of her career. It also improved her record over the Spaniard to 5-0 lifetime.
Suarez Navarro looked in control of the match early on - leading 5-3 and 40-0 but the Russian bounced back to win four games in a row and the first set. She then continued to dominate the second set as well. Pavlyuchenkova has been recently working with former world no. 1 Martina Hingis.
Speaking after her win, Pavlyuchenkova commented, "I had a slow start - I was a little bit disappointed about that, it was the third match this week I started like that. Also Carla was playing really well - it wasn't easy to play my game because she was holding me back on the baseline, putting a lot of spin and moving me around. It wasn't easy, but I just tried to dig deep and fight and that really helped me in the end."
Hingis came out on court for one of the on-court coaching breaks and the Russian said the advice she got really helped her.
"We had already discussed our tactics before the match and I had beaten Carla three or four times before already, but things just weren't working and I probably just needed some mental support from her. I was complaining a little bit that these things weren't working, so I think I just needed some positive words from Martina out there. She told me to keep playing my game and be more aggressive, and other things. It really helped."
Pavlyuchenkova heads to madrid for the Mutua Madrid Open and has a tough first round against world no. 3 Vicotria Azarenka first up. Suarez Navarro meets Australian ninth seed Samantha Stosur in the first round in Madrid.
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