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Jasmine Paolini came back from the brink of defeat to beat Anna Kalinskaya and win the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.
On the back foot initially, eventually Paolini snatched a three-set victory, 4-6 7-5 7-5.
Kalinskaya had been in form. She’d snapped Iga Swiatek’s seven-match winning streak when she beat the World No 1 in the semi-finals.
That was qualifier Kalinskaya’s third win over a top-10 player wins in as many days after eliminating Jelena Ostapenko and Coco Gauff.
Anna Kalinskaya came into the final in good form
Kalinskaya got off to a perfect start against Paolini, who was in her first WTA Tour final since Monastir last October and her first above WTA 250 level.
Kalinskaya won the first two games of the match, blazing winners past the Italian.
Paolini responded well to break back, only for Kalinskaya put herself ahead in the set once again as she won the fifth game against Paolini’s serve.
Once again the Italian fought back and broke back. But in the ninth game she gave up easy points. Kalinskaya took that opportunity, converting the second of three break points. That gave her a commanding position in the set, which she duly closed out.
To start the second set Kalinskaya once again went ahead with an early break, driving Paolini from one side of the court to the other until eventually the Italian could not keep the ball in play.
But Paolini would return the favour to level the set.
With an increasing number of unforced errors Kalinskaya put pressure on herself.
She had to serve just to take them into a tiebreak. But a fired up Paolini drew mistakes from her opponent and secured the break to win the second set.
Kalinskaya still started the third set strongly. A brilliant return of serve was well beyond Paolini and Kalinskaya seized a break.
“I tried to stay positive every point,” Paolini said
But again she found it hard to pull away. Paolini took her to two break points in the next game and Kalinskaya could not stave off that threat, hitting into the net in a rally on the second break point to give that game away.
She reclaimed the initiative to deny Paolini a hold of serve in the next game and managed to maintain her advantage for much of the deciding set.
But when she was serving for the championship, Kalinskaya began to miscue her strikes, allowing Paolini to stay in the match with a crucial break.
That heaped all the pressure back on Kalinskaya. After serving for the title, she was serving to stay in the match. Accuracy deserted her in the decisive game as Paolini took the break and the tournament.
“I’m really surprised,” Paolini said afterwards. “I’m really happy. It was a really tough match. She’s playing unbelievably.
“To come back was really tough, I tried to stay positive every point,” she added. “I’m really proud of myself.”
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