Masarova boosts trophy dash as Jones, Bolkvadze and Marino triumph too
Spain’s Rebeka Masarova continued her eye-catching form on the ITF World Tennis Tour by sealing the biggest title of her career – and third of an increasingly productive season – at W60 Vitoria-Gasteiz.
The 21-year-old defeated recently-crowned Wimbledon girls’ champion Ane Mintegi Del Olmo 7-6(3) 6-4 in the final to make it back-to-back successes on home soil, following her triumph at W25 Palma del Rio earlier this month.
Victory means she has reached at least the quarter-finals at each of her last five tournaments, while this impressive set of results, which began at W25 Platja D’Aro in May where she claimed her first title since 2019, has prompted a rankings surge.
Switzerland-born Masarova, who conquered all before her at the 2016 Roland Garros Junior Championships, now holds a career-high world ranking of No. 232, having ended 2020 at No. 717.
For Mintegi Del Olmo, reaching the final represented her best performance at this level of competition by some considerable margin and built upon her stunning showing at SW19 the week before.
The 17-year-old, from Idiazabal, became the first Spanish girl to claim a Junior Grand Slam title at Wimbledon after navigating her way to the final and overcoming Germany’s Nastasja Mariana Schunk.
Elsewhere on the ITF World Tennis Tour during the last week, Great Britain’s Francesca Jones also claimed the most significant title of her fledgling career by defeating Russia’s Oksana Selekhmeteva in the final at W60 Biarritz.
The 20-year-old now has six professional titles to her name, all of which have been won on clay, although victory in south-west France was her first since 2019 when she topped the podium at successive W25 events in Minsk.
There was also a first crown at W60 level for Georgia’s Mariam Bolkvadze, who topped the podium at W60 Nur-Sultan after recovering from a set down to dispatch Russia’s Valeria Savinykh in the final.
By starring in Kazakhstan, the 23-year-old left-hander scooped her sixth ITF World Tennis Tour crown and, like Jones, this latest accomplishment was her first since 2019 when she triumphed at W25 Obidos.
There was also title joy for Canada’s Rebecca Marino, who overcame Japan’s Mayo Hibi in the final at W25 Evansville to claim her first ITF World Tennis Tour title since May 2019.
Marino’s story is well-known and one filled with hope, despair, emotion, reinvention, heartbreak and triumph. In 2013, at the age of just 22, she walked away from the game citing burnout, although she later revealed she was battling depression and had struggled with cyber bullying and abuse received on social media.
During nearly five years away from tennis, Marino worked on her physical and mental well-being, studying English Literature at the University of British Colombia and competing on the varsity rowing team there.
After her father, Joe, was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2017, Marino decided to return to the sport, although a successful early comeback soon gave way to an 18-month injury nightmare which threatened to derail her career permanently.
A plantar fascia tear in her left foot kept her off court until September 2020, while to compound what was already an incredibly demanding and destabilising period, her father tragically passed away at the age of 59.
Earlier this year, at the Australian Open, Marino made her first Grand Slam main draw appearance for eight years, while her triumph at Evansville was her first title since returning from injury.
Romania’s Cristina Dinu, meanwhile, maintained her impressive campaign by chalking up a fourth title of the season at W25 Tarvisio – a remarkable return to form having not tasted victory at a professional event since 2017 prior to this year. In Tarvisio, the 28-year-old defeated top seed Gabriela Ce of Brazil in the final.
There were also victories for American qualifier Alexa Graham and Eliessa Vanlangendonck of Belgium, who were victorious at W15 Almada and W15 Monastir respectively. For Vanlangendonck, 24, this was her first professional title.
The ITF World Tennis Tour Women’s continues with 10 tournaments this week, headlined by W60 Olomouc, while there are W25 events at Les Contamines-Montjoie, Telavi, Don Benito and Kyiv. Follow the live results here.