Second seeded Tadeja Majeric of Slovenia thumped top seeded Valeriya Strakhova of Ukraine in straight sets to win the singles title at the USD 25,000 Endurance Aurangabad Open Women's ITF Tennis Championships here today.
Majeric defeated Strakhova, ranked 246th in the world, 6-4 6-3 in one hour and 35 minutes to deny the latter a second title in the championship by adding to the doubles crown she won yesterday.
Majeric, who lost two back-to-back finals in Nigeria recently, thus began the year on high by pocketing 50 WTA points that could see her move into the 220 bracket.
Ranked as high as 111 last year, Majeric showed fluency in her strokes and raced to a 5-1 lead in the first set before the top seed fought back to reduce the margin to 5-4. But Majeric held on to wrap up the set 6-4.
In the second set, Majeric broke her rival in the 7th game to go up 4-3 before going on to clinch the set 6-3 and the title.
"I'm very happy to win in India. This is the third title I've won in India. I won at Muzzafurnagar and Pune earlier. This win will do me lot of good and I hope that I will be able to get to my best ranking in 2016," said Majeric after the match.
The winner got USD 3,917 (Rs 2.58 lakh) and 50 WTA points while the runner up received USD 2,019 (Rs 1.37 lakh) and 30 WTA points.
