Rogers continues comeback with title triumph

Established WTA stars Shelby Rogers and Coco Vandeweghe continued on the comeback trail from injury last week meeting in the final of W60 Templeton in California, USA. And it was former Top 50 player Rogers who won out, coming from a set down to defeat two-time Grand Slam semi-finalist and good friend Vandeweghe, picking up her first title since September 2013.

“It’s always tough playing CoCo, someone who’s such a close friend and she’s just such a tough player.”

Having only returned to competitive play in April following a 13-month injury layoff, Rogers, 26, who also partnered Vandeweghe during the week in Doubles, dropped the first set in the W60 Templeton final 6-4 to the former WTA world number 9 but remained unsettled and took twelve of the next seventeen games played to run out a 4-6 6-2 6-3 winner for a title she fully intends to savour.

“I’m going to take a couple of days to enjoy this and recover,” Rogers said. “It’s not every day you get to enjoy it because you’re usually going from one tournament to the next.”

W60 tournaments also took place in Australia and Europe last week. Lizette Cabrera triumphed at W60 Darwin while in Valencia, Spain, Varvara Gracheva followed up her win at W60 St Malo the previous week by taking the title in southern Spain elevating her to a new WTA career high of 121 this week. Across the border in Portugal, Isabella Shinikova profited from the unfortunate retirement of opponent Natalija Kostic whilst leading 6-3 2-0 in Caldas da Rainha.

Cabrera and Shinikova also added doubles titles to their singles success and there were a further eight players on the ITF World Tennis Tour who did similarly last week.

One of those players, competing in Mexico, was Jorge Panta whose singles title win was the first of his pro career. Seeded sixth, Panta dropped just one set in the tournament, in the final against fellow Peruvian Mauricio Echazu, before finally winning out 2-6 6-2 6-3 for his maiden singles title victory.

Tournaments in Tunisia, Lebanon, Ukraine and Turkey also saw first time singles winners crowned with the M15 and W15 tournaments in Tabarka and Antalya having first time champions in both the men’s and women’s events.

Knowing your partner well can be of a great benefit so who better to partner up with than your sibling?  That’s exactly what the Lock and Taylor brothers did to great effect in South Africa and Portugal respectively.

On Saturday at the M15 Johannesburg tournament, Benjamin and Courtney Lock racked up an 11th career title together before Benjamin returned the following day to add the singles title to his collection.

The M25 Oliveira de Azemeis doubles final saw top seeds Adam and Jason Taylor emerge triumphant in two close sets as they move onto five career titles together.

Other winners around the globe in week 39 included Britain’s Jack Draper. The 17-year-old dropped just four games, all in the first set, to win the M25 Shrewsbury title, his fourth of 2019 of which three have come in Great Britain, although in post-match comments implied the match was a lot tougher than the 6-4 6-0 score line would suggest.

“It was difficult, I was feeling it a bit mentally. I was really tired; it's the end of the week. But I did play some really good stuff today, so to get over the line feels good.”

Also winning in Great Britain was Anna-Lena Friedsam. Having once ranked within the WTA top 50, Freidsam took the W25 Roehampton title having been runner-up there the previous week.

In France, former WTA world top 30 player Urszula Radwanska, sister of 2012 Wimbledon runner-up Agnieszka, won her second title of 2019 having not previously been a title winner since Nottingham, Great Britain in June 2012.

Already twice a runner-up this year in Cairo, including last weekend, Nastja Kolar finally went one better to lift the title with a 6-3 5-7 7-6(4) defeat of Egyptian top seed Sandra Samir. The 25-year-old Slovenian is now one shy of reaching double figures in singles title wins.