Flavia Pennetta won her biggest title of the career by defeating world number 3 Agnieszka Radwanska 6-2 6-1 in the Premier Mandatory final of Indian Wells.
Pennetta, aged 32, has with this conquered her 10th career title, less then a year after plummeting to world number 166 and on the verge of retiring after a nasty wrist injury.
In a match evidently influenced by the injury of the second seed, Pennetta showed anyway lots from her new and improved repertoire, demonstrating how this victory is the result of hard work and dedication.
Pennetta, who had lost four times to Radwanska out of as many matches before this season, surely knew she would have had her chances as she came into this match strong of a sensational win over the Pole in Dubai.
The match started immediately with a puzzling kick-off from Radwanska, who looked tentative in her first attempts to win points off the Italian, who had two chances to break her serve already in the first game.
The Pole managed to hold, but Pennetta replied with a solid service game as well.
Despite being the first time for the 20th seed in a singles’ final of this prestige, she showed a great attitude and in the fifth game she found the way to break her opponent’s serve and impose her game throughout the set, closed 6-2 in her favour.
The hints that something was wrong with the world number 3 were all there in the first set, as despite the good performance of the Italian, she had hit an unusual number of unforced errors.
Then in the second set, Radwanska called for the trainer on court and had her already-taped knee once again checked and bandaged.
It is never easy to play against an evidently injured opponent, if it is your career biggest final, it is if possible even harder.
Similarly to what happened to Stanislas Wawrinka in the Australian Open final, Pennetta suffered little nerves in the early games of the second set, but she immediately tamed them and took full advantage of the situation to fly 5-1 up.
Radwanska tried to push her body to the limit in the very last game; her defence improved enough to force the game to the advantages, but there was no way Pennetta would have let this match run away from her hands.
So, as the last defence from the Pole flew long, the Italian rose her arms to the sky and let all the happiness flaw.
The hug at the net and the lovely words during her speech, clearly testified the worry of the new Indian Wells champion for her opponent, but as she said: “this is my day,” and rightfully so.
Pennetta, who was the first Italian woman to enter the WTA top 10 back in 2009, has decided to write the story of tennis for her country once again becoming the first Italian to win a Premier Mandatory –she already became the first finalist after the win over Li Na.
The Indian Wells champion, thanks to this win, will be ranked 12 in the world starting from Monday, but even more impressive is her fifth place in the Race to Singapore.
However, there will be no rest for players and tennis fans, because starting from tomorrow the action will take place in Miami, for another Premier Mandatory spread over the next two weeks.