Zavatska ends four-year title wait with victory at W60 Brescia

Katarina Zavatska ended a near-four year wait for silverware after triumphing on the ITF World Tennis Tour at W60 Brescia.

The 23-year-old Ukrainian, who had finished runner-up in two finals at W25 level since her last tournament triumph - in July 2019 at W100 Contrexeville - returned to the winner’s circle with a strong week on Italian clay.

In fact, Zavatska’s greatest test through the week was in an opening round clash with 18-year-old South African Isabella Kruger, who pushed her all the way in a fierce three-set contest, before cantering through the rest of the event in straight sets.

She overcame Yuliya Hatouka 6-4 6-2 in the final, ending recent Grado champion Hatouka’s nine-match winning streak at W60 level.

Zavatska peaked at No. 103 in the WTA rankings in February 2020 and, though now down at No. 218, has shown plenty of the form that carried her to that career-high so far this year.

She impressed, albeit in defeats, against Barbora Krejcikova and Marketa Vondrousova while on Billie Jean King Cup duty against Czech Republic in April, and went on to reach the final at W25 Santa Margherita di Pula and quarter-finals as a qualifier at W100 Madrid on her favoured clay before this weekend’s triumph.

The former junior world No. 13 will soon turn her attentions to grass as she eyes a place in the Wimbledon main draw for the first time, having fallen at the final hurdle in qualifying last year.

Elsewhere on the ITF World Tennis Tour last week, there were also W40 triumphs for 26-year-old Greek Valentini Grammatikopoulou and 21-year-old Australian Olivia Gadecki, with the latter claiming the biggest title of her career to date at W40 Montemor-O-Novo.

Click here for all of this weekend's women's results on the ITF World Tennis Tour