Serena Rolls Past Ivanovic To Win 1st Career Cincy Title
Top-ranked Serena Williams came back from a first-set deficit to defeat Ana Ivanovic 6-4, 6-1 on Sunday, capturing her first career Western and Southern Open title.
The ninth-seeded Serb raced out to a 3-1 first-set lead after breaking in the opening game. Ivanovic has a number of excellent forehand winners through the first four games that had Serena running baseline to baseline, and seemed to be in control of the match.
From there, however, Serena completely turned the match around. After fighting off a double-break, the younger Williams sister rattled off 10 points in a row to climb right back into it. Her serve game picked up, and she ripped 12 aces as a part of her winning 11 of the match’s final 13 games.
“Definitely my best performance of the summer,” said Williams, who had fallen short in this tournament in her previous five visits to Cincinnati. “This is definitely a level that can take me to the [U.S. Open] title. I still have a lot of work to do. It’s definitely a better level than I’ve played all year, to be honest.”
Serena has quickly erased people’s memories of her Wimbledon withdrawal at the end of June. She has won two of the last three tournaments (her victory in Stanford being the other one), and looks to have regained her top form.
She had 26 winners to just 13 unforced errors to go along with her 12 aces. Ivanovic’s return game was no match for Serena’s serve late in the first and throughout the second set, something that the Serb referred to after the match.
“It’s been a great week for me in Cincinnati,” said Ivanovic. “I really want to congratulate Serena. I think I got a lesson on how to serve today. Maybe after you retire you can give me some tips!”
