Arn captures Auckland title

Written by: Staff on 8th January 2011

Arn captures Auckland title |

Bolter Greta Arn climaxed her fairytale week with a straight-sets win over defending champion Yanina Wickmayer to capture the 2011 ASB Classic singles title.

Ranked 88 in the world, the Hungarian veteran (31) arrived alone in Auckland – missing her luggage – with the prospect of qualifying for the KIA Motors Singles main draw, but snuck in on her merits after a couple of late withdrawals.

That was all the opportunity she needed.

In the final, Arn simply continued the rock solid play that had carried her past seeds Sofia Arvidsson (eighth), Maria Sharapova (first) and Julia Goerges (fourth) on the way.

While Wickmayer seemed to be wrestling with herself mentally and perhaps – after her 2h 51m marathon semifinal win over Chinese Shuai Peng yesterday – physically, her opponent was ruthlessly efficient, breaking twice to take the opening set 6-3.

“I had three tough matches where I had to come back a lot of times,” said Wickmayer. “That doesn’t make it easy to stay fit mentally.”

The Belgian second seed again struggled on serve, winning barely half her first-serve points through that first set.

By contrast, Arn allowed her no chances to break back.

During the second set, Wickmayer began to hint at another comeback, but dropped a crucial service game at 3-2. That was probably the straw that broke her back.

“I wasn’t just disappointing at losing, also disappointed with my game today,” said Wickmayer. “Everyone wants to win, but I also wanted to play a good match today and I didn’t.

“I had one bad day, but four good ones this week.”

Arn had another break point for the match at 5-2, but couldn’t capitalise. She needed two more before finally clinching it on serve in the next game.

Topics: Bolter Greta Arn, Tennis