In the most one-sided final in the 24-year history of the WTA Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, Italy's Sara Errani came out victorious over Czech Barbora Strycova 6-0, 6-2 here.
Errani took the first set within half an hour. "Yes, I was surprised about winning the match so fast and so straight but Barbora also had not her best day. It is amazing that I won," said the Italian on Saturday after winning the $465,480 prize money, reports Xinhua.
World No.22 Errani played from the beginning at full speed and left her Czech opponent little chance to resist her fast shots from corner-to-corner and her swift swaps from the baseline to the net.
After one hour and six minutes amid 21 degrees Celsius outdoor temperatures in the evening in the Gulf Arabian sheikhdom, the match was decided and Errani, who was overwhelmed by emotions and relief, ran to her coach Pablo Lozano and embraced him, shedding tears of happiness.
As both players are 1.64 metres tall, they focused also on tricking each other by playing surprise slice shots.
World No.41 Strycova, 29, appeared exhausted after her three-set semi-final win over France's Caroline Garcia on Friday. "This was truly not my day. All went wrong during this match but I am also happy about my performance during the tournament as a whole."
At 0-2 in the second set, a desperate Strycova started weeping which the several thousand spectators in the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Stadium replied with loud applause to motivate her.
Until that time nearly everything that could go wrong, went for the Plzen-born who lives in the United States. At 1-4, the Czech seemed to have lost her nerves, but managed to win one more game.
"The support of the spectators was indeed great. I am most thankful to all of them and I also heard many Czech fans in the audience, that lifted my mood," she said.
Errani agreed, saying that "the atmosphere in Dubai and the hard court are very good".
"I have no specific objectives for the rest of 2016. You never know what will come and I do not think too much about it," said the 28-year-old Bologna-born, who will play the Qatar Open in Doha, which runs from February 21 to 27.
