Sunday, 11 August 2013

Williams crushes Cirstea

(Rank/Seed)

1/1 Williams comfortably handled (27/-) Cirstea 62 60 to win her 54th career title. The win is her 8th title of the year, equalling her previous best of 2002 as she solidified her status of US Open favourite. It was also her 3rd title in Toronto. Cirstea was playing her biggest ever final as the 1st Romanian woman since Irina Spirlea at Indian Wells 1997 to reach a final in the upper echelon of tour events. Ultimately though, Cirstea was outclassed in front of a packed house.

1st Set
The tone was set early on as Williams quickly moved into a double break 3-0 lead as Cirstea seemed nervous and double faulted twice in the 1st game. Neither player played near their best as Cirstea quickly broke back to give the crowd something to cheer about, but it was short lived as she ultimately tried too often to hit the extravagant instead of being solid as she'd done so successfully all week. Somehow, Williams won a 62 set whilst hitting a mere 3 winners and less than 50% of her 1st serves went in!

2nd Set
Perhaps the head to head, the occasion or her poor play got to her, but Cirstea couldn't play in this set. Williams in contrast started to get better, finding more 1st serves and hitting with controlled aggression, though she still hit only a mere 12 winners all match! Cirstea's fight dissipated rapidly towards the end as she made a number of careless errors, despite her coach's encouragement. It was all too apparent that Cirstea was upset with her inability to play better in the match having worked so hard to get there, but even a Williams at this level was a class above the players she'd played thus far. The match ended as badly as the last for Cirstea against Williams.

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