WTA Round Up: Watson Wins Monterrey, Svitolina Captures Malaysian Open Title

The ATP World Tour was off this past week as the men prepared for their respective Davis Cup matches this weekend, but the WTA saw two thrilling tournaments take place. Great Britain’s Heather Watson came back from a set down to win the Abierto Monterrey Afirme title in Monterrey, Mexico, while Ukrainian Elina Svitolina held off Canada’s Eugenie Bouchard for the Malaysian Open championship.

Watson needed just under two hours to complete her comeback against Kirsten Flipkens, beating the Belgian 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 to win the third title of her career.

“I don’t know where to start. I’m extremely happy today,” said Watson afterwards. “I was nervous coming into the match, and I’ve never beaten Kirsten before—she’s a great player who really makes you work for it. I thought Kirsten was pretty flawless in the first set, and I was getting frustrated with myself. I just had to stay calm and try my best. I never looked past the next point.”

After dropping the opening set, Watson won 12 of the final 17 games to take home the title.

On the other side of the world in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Svitolina also came back from a set down to win a title, defeating Bouchard 6-7(5), 6-4, 7-5 win the Malaysian Open trophy.

Svitolina led 5-3 in the opening set only to see Bouchard storm back to win the first set in a tiebreaker. Svitolina then had to claw back from 2-4 down in the second set and did so, winning the final four games to force the match into a deciding third.

The Ukrainian had to have one more comeback in her as she broke Bouchard as the Canadian was serving for the match at 5-4. After saving a break point to jump ahead 6-5, Svitolina broke one more time to close out the match and win the fourth title of her career.

“Emotionally, I’m really exhausted now,” she said afterwards. “I said to myself that I needed to just play my game and forget everything that happened in the last game. I did a great job; I played amazing returns, and she was really under pressure. This was the key in that moment.”