Monday, July 18, 2011

Martinez Sanchez wins 4th title at Gastein Ladies

BAD GASTEIN, Austria (AP) -Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez defeated Austrian wild card Patricia Mayr-Archleitner 6-0, 7-5 in the final of the Gastein Ladies on Sunday to win her fourth career title. The 54th-ranked Spaniard is now 4-1 in finals after also winning in Bogota and Bastad in 2009 and Rome last year. All her victories have been on clay. "It's a really good step for me to play a lot of matches in the same week and build my confidence," Martinez Sanchez said. Story continues below ↓ advertisement | your ad here "At the start I was playing almost a hundred percent perfectly. It's normal to have a bit of difficulty after such a good start, but I stayed calm all the time until the end, and that's why I won." The 109th-ranked Mayr-Archleitner, who trashed the 8th-seeded Ksenia Pervak 6-0, 6-0 Saturday to reach her first career WTA Tour final, won just four points on serve and nine in total in the opening set. The 28-year-old Martinez Sanchez, playing her first final this season, had nine aces and won the first seven games. However, she found herself 4-1 down in the second after dropping serve twice. She saved six more break points to win six of the next seven games as her opponent seemed to struggle with the strong winds, which hampered her throw at serving. Reaching the final means Mayr-Archleitner, who was a career-high 70th two years ago, will return into the top 100 when rankings are updated on Monday.