Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova edged out Dominika Cibulkova 6-7(5) 7-6(3) 7-6(6) in a 3 hour and 35 minute epic to seal the Strasbourg title.
The Russian hit 13 aces during the epic match as the opening set forced one of three tiebreaks despite the early exchange of breaks. As well as Pavlyuchenkova played in the opening set, her Slovakian opponent matched the Russian with every groundstroke and earned her rewards when she took her first set point to win the tiebreak 7-5.
The second set saw the world number 31 retaliate as she grabbed the crucial break and stormed into a 3-0 lead against Cibulkova. Despite being a break down twice in the second set, the Slovakian used her fighting abilities and broke back on both occasions as she forced yet another tiebreak. However Pavlyuchenkova made sure that she would force a deciding set as a ruthless last five points secured the tiebreak 7-3 in exactly the same time as the first set, 1 hour and 10 minutes.
The deciding set saw plenty of drama and entertainment as there were four breaks of serve in eight games, which resulted in poor serving. In the tenth game the 3rd seed saved two match points as she eventually forced a third consecutive tiebreak. After having two match points saved, the Russian took her third match point to seal a historic win for her 12th career title.
The match at 3 hours and 35 minutes is the longest non-slam match of the season, overtaking the match between Petra Kvitova and Yulia Putintseva earlier this season which lasted 3 hours and 17 minutes. It was a magnificent effort from both players, which saw a spectacular display of WTA tennis, in which Pavlyuchenkova will take great confidence in especially as considering her draw with an unconfident Garbine Muguruza potentially awaiting in round three.
In the other WTA final of the day, Johanna Larsson collected her second career title after a 7-6(4) 6-4 win over Alison Riske in Nurnberg. The Swede broke four times as she won in 1 hour and 46 minutes to win her first title of the season.
