HP OPEN – Final Update 10/16/11

Written by: Staff on 16th October 2011

HP OPEN - Final Update 10/16/11

Marion Bartoli of France hits a return to Christina McHale of the US during their second round match on the third day of the 2011 US Open Tennis Championship at the USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York, USA 31 August 2011. The US Open runs through 11 September 2011. EPA/JOHN G. MABANGLO |

HP OPEN

Osaka, Japan

October 10-16, 2011

$220,000/International

Hard/Outdoors

Results – Sunday, October 16, 2011

Singles – Final

(2/WC) Marion Bartoli (FRA) d. (1) Samantha Stosur (AUS) 63 61

Singles – Semifinals

(1) Samantha Stosur (AUS) d. Zheng Jie (CHN) 76(5) 36 63

(2/WC) Marion Bartoli (FRA) d. (3) Angelique Kerber (GER) 61 76(5)

Doubles – Final

(4) Date-Krumm/Zhang (JPN/CHN) d. (1) King/Shvedova (USA/KAZ) 75 36 119 (Match TB)

Doubles – Semifinals

(1) King/Shvedova (USA/KAZ) d. (3) Kops-Jones/Spears (USA/USA) 60 62

Final Facts

– Bartoli wins her seventh WTA singles title and second of 2011, having also won the Premier-level Eastbourne event in June (where she also won her semifinal and final on the same day). The 27-year-old Frenchwoman also won this tournament in 2006, for what was the second title of her career.

– Bartoli improves to 7-9 in career WTA finals, and 2-3 in 2011. This season she has finished runner-up at Indian Wells, Strasbourg and Stanford.

– Bartoli has now played 80 matches on the WTA this year – the most of any player – building a 56-24 record. (Caroline Wozniacki has played 77 matches for a 62-15 record.)

– With her victory, Bartoli keeps alive her hopes of qualifying for the TEB BNP Paribas WTA Championships, which get underway in Istanbul next week. However, in order to secure the eighth and final spot she needs to win the Kremlin Cup in Moscow this week, as well as have Agnieszka Radwanska lose before the quarterfinals at the same event.

– US Open champion Stosur, who won her first WTA singles title at Osaka two years ago, slips to 3-10 in WTA singles finals. This season she has also posted runner-up finishes at Rome and Toronto.

– Kimiko Date-Krumm and Zhang Shuai collect their first title together. The win marks 22-year-old Zhang’s first WTA title of any kind, and just the second doubles title for Date-Krumm, who won this event in 1996 (when it was staged in Tokyo in the month of April) with Ai Sugiyama. Date-Krumm won the singles here four times in the 1990s.

– In winning the singles at Seoul in 2009, Date-Krumm registered the longest gap ever between singles titles on the WTA (13 years, one month, between 1996 San Diego and 2009 Seoul). Her gap between doubles titles is even longer: 15 years, six months.

– At 41 years, 18 days, Date-Krumm still has some way to go to catch Martina Navratilova in the age stakes. In 2006, Navratilova won the doubles at Montréal (w/Petrova) two months shy of her 50th birthday.

– Vania King and Yaroslava Shvedova could have guaranteed themselves the last berth in the four-team finale in Istanbul by winning the Osaka title. However, with the doubles sign-in deadline in Luxembourg passed and no Victoria Azarenka and Maria Kirilenko on the list, King and Shvedova qualified anyway, with Azarenka and Kirilenko (the only other team still in the running) having to win Luxembourg to stay alive in the race.

Final Quotes

Marion Bartoli, 2011 HP Open singles champion:

“I’m very happy with the way I played this week. It has been a good season; I felt my level dropped in August, especially at the US Open, but now I’m back playing well again. Obviously to win a title is great. Now I have two titles this year, so I’m really happy. I love to play in Japan. I love this country. Everyone is so friendly. I’m going to rush to Moscow now and hope to keep it going.”

Topics: HP Open, Marion Bartoli, Samantha Stosur