WTA Belgrade: Paula Badosa wins her first title
Paula Badosa won her first WTA title. In the final of the 250cc tournament in Belgrade she led 6: 2, 2: 0 when her opponent Ana Konjuh had to retire due to an injury.
by Florian Goosmann
last edit: May 22, 2021, 08:25 pm
Konjuh struggled to move in the end and finally decided to end the match. Both players exchanged extensive information on the net.
For the 23-year-old Badosa, the victory in Belgrade is the first on the WTA tour. The Spaniard had made her way up in the last few months, at the beginning of the year she was still in 70th place, now she will be in 34th place in the world rankings. This year she had already reached semi-finals in Lyon, Charleston and Madrid - in Charleston, among other things, after defeating world number one Ashleigh Barty.
Badosa and Konjuh had only been able to play their semi-finals on Sunday morning.
Badosa is already the seventh premiere tournament winner of the year - after Clara Tauson, Sara Sorribes Tormo, Leylah Fernandez, Maria Camila Osorio Serrano, Veronika Kudermetova and Astra Sharma.
Ana Konjuh is also on the rise again
But also the final opponent Konjuh can be very satisfied with her week in Belgrade. Konjuh, already in 20th place in the WTA ranking, was injured for a long time from late summer 2017, in 2018 only played four matches, in 2019 only five. The Croatian has only been regularly back in action since September 2020, at her first tournament on the ITF World Tennis Tour in September 2020 she won directly (without a world ranking!).
This year, the 23-year-old got back into position with a round of 16 in Miami and a quarter-final in Istanbul, and thanks to her Belgrade final she will be in the top 150 again from Monday.