Barbora Krejcikova rallied from a set down to stun World No.1 and top seed Iga Swiatek 5-7, 7-6(4), 6-3 in a thrilling championship at the Ostrava Open.
Krejcikova handed Swiatek only her second career defeat in 12 tour-level singles finals, and first in three years. Krejcikova trailed 5-1 in the opening set, and though she couldn't turn the set all the way around, eventually succeeded in the match in a staggering three hours and 16 minutes match.
"It was a big match, I think, for both sides. We played amazingly. We gave an amazing show to the fans, so I'm really happy with that and with the way I have performed. It's always great to be a winner in your home country," WTA.com quoted Krejcikova as saying.
"It's a huge victory ... It's one of the biggest matches that I ever played. The atmosphere was just very energetic and very unbelievable for both sides. It's really one of the top matches that I think I ever played in my life," she added.
After dropping the first set, which lasted almost 80 minutes, Krejcikova took the lead early in the second set after breaking Swiatek's serve three times in the opening game. The World No. 1 recovered the break, though, and went into the tiebreak up a game both times.
The first break came from Krejcikova to serve for the match after neither player faced a break point in the opening seven games of the decider. The 2021 Roland Garros champion had only dropped two points on serve until to that point, so she had to step up her game to win her fifth Hologic WTA Tour championship.
"I was just telling myself to keep going. She's a great champion. She's a great player, so I was expecting that she was not going to give it to me easy. So I was just like, 'OK, keep going. It's going to be fine. You're going to get your chance. You're going to make it,' so that was my inner voice," she said.
( With inputs from ANI )
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