Italian Camila Giorgi won the first edition of the Merida WTA Open on Sunday after defeating Sweden’s Rebecca Peterson in the final in three sets 7-6 (7/3), 1-6 and 6-2.
Giorgi ranked 68th in the world, defeated Peterson, 140th in the ranking, in two hours and 23 minutes.
The Italian racket came out to the court to try to dominate with the power of his service; on his side, Peterson had some difficulties with the return but was able to hold his serve.
Peterson tried to counter the strength of Giorgi’s serve and had three break points that the Italian was able to lift to take a 2-1 lead.
The Swede was able to overcome the fast shots of her rival and although she was at risk of suffering the break, she was able to hold it to have the score tied 3-3.
In the next game Peterson had a double break opportunity and this time she took advantage of it to go up 4-3.
The Swede held her serve and served to take the first set, but after a double fault, the Italian recovered and broke back to tie it 5-5.
Although Giorgi recovered solidity in her shots and serenity, and with that, she was able to turn the score at 6-5, then she lacked the precision to take advantage of a ‘set point’ so Peterson forced the ‘tie break’ in which the Italian finally won calmly after an hour and six minutes of play.
In the first set, the Italian had a 67.4 percent of effectiveness with her first service to 63.4 percent of the Swedish.
The second set was not so close; Peterson broke again to take a 3-1 lead, taking advantage of a relaxation of her opponent; the Nordic player broke back to take a 4-1 lead.
Giorgi could not overcome her mistakes and the accurate shots of Peterson who took advantage of a triple ‘set point’ to take the second set with a convincing 6-1 in just 31 minutes.
The Swede had a 72.2 percent efficiency in the second set with her first serve to 80 percent of the Italian who had 13 unforced errors.
Giorgi returned to the court hesitant for the third set and Peterson broke her serve at the first opportunity.
Down 2-0, the Italian showed a great ability to react, recovered the break, equalized 2-2 and then after a second break she was leading 4-2; Peterson could no longer get into the match and lost the third set 6-2.
In the overall statistics of the match, Giorgi had 40 winners to Peterson’s 22.
In this way, the Italian tennis player achieved the fourth singles title of her career; she was previously crowned in ‘s-Hertogenboch-2015, Linz-2018 and Montreal-2021.
Lifetime, Giorgi and Peterson have already faced each other four times, the balance indicates three wins for the Italian to one for the Swede.
The Abierto de Mérida is a WTA category 250 tournament, which in its first edition was played on the hard courts of the Yucatán Country Club and distributed a purse of 259,303 dollars; the Italian champion took home 34,228 dollars.
Earlier in the doubles final, Caty McNally of the United States and Diane Parry of France were crowned champions after defeating Xinyu Wang of China and Fang-Hsien Wu of Taiwan in two sets, 6-0 and 7-5, in one hour and 12 minutes.
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