While qualifying and first-round action is already in full swing at the Mutua Madrid Open and Women’s Tennis Blog’s photographer Jimmie48 is bringing us live to the courts, the Portugal Open has closed down in Oeiras and Carla Suarez Navarro finally lifted her first WTA trophy. It was the sixth WTA final of her 11 years as a pro and she played all the six on clay, her favorite surface, including last year’s Portugal Open, when she finished runner-up to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
Carla’s today’s career breakthrough came against Svetlana Kuznetsova, the winner of 13 WTA titles, including two Grand Slams, one being the French Open. The top-seeded Suarez Navarro won a grueling first set, then after losing the second and seeing herself 4-1 down in the third the Spaniard managed to recover and record a 6-4 3-6 6-4 victory.
With 26 wins this season, Suarez Navarro is WTA’s leader in match wins, ahead of Dominika Cibulkova and Agnieszka Radwanska who have 24 wins.
