It was Kaia Kanepi of Estonia who lifted the winner’s trophy at the rainy, windy and cold $690,000 Brussels Open and is now projected to move from current No.40 to No.26 in the rankings.
After edging Jamie Hampton in Saturday morning’s semifinals 7-6(6) 6-4 and just a few hours of rest, Kanepi beat Peng Shuai, who also had a tough match earlier in the day, a 6-4 2-6 6-4 victory over Romina Oprandi. Kanepi converted the fourth match point against Peng to record a 6-2 7-5 win and clinch the fourth title of her career, the first three being Palermo in 2010 and Brisbane and Estoril last year.
Leading up to the Saturday’s climax of the Brussels Open, Kanepi’s victims were third seed Dominika Cibulkova in the first round, Jana Cepelova in the second and seventh seed Varvara Lepchenko in the quarterfinals.
Just like at the other this week’s tournament, the Internationaux de Strasbourg, the top seed lost her opener in Brussels, as Caroline Wozniacki fell to Zheng Jie 6-2 6-4 after a first-round bye.
Nice one from Kaia. She’s shown us some good tennis and seems pretty well prepared for the upcoming RG. Can’t wait to see her there now 😉
Good performance from Kaia but also Jamie Hampton has done really well here.