Number 5 seed and this year’s Wimbledon quarter finalist Camila Giorgi beat Russian qualifier Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-3 6-1 to lift her second career title and her first since her first triumph at s’Hertogenbosch.
The Italian player played her second final in the Austrian tournament three years after finishing runner-up to Karolina Pliskova after missing match points.
The first seven games of the opening set went on serve, before Giorgi earned the first break to open up a 4-3 lead.
Giorgi went up a double break to race out to a 4-0 lead and brought up two break points for 5-0. Alexandrova fended them off to hold her service game, but Giorgi got her third break to win the final two games.
The 26-year-old Italian player is projected to reach her career high at world number 28.
Alexandrova is set to make her come-back to the top 100 after dropping to world number 122 after the US Open.
Giorgi has become the first Italian player to win in Linz. She has completed an impressive weekend, in which she dropped just one set to Margarita Gasparyan in the quarter final to reach her fourth quarter final of the season after Sydney, Prague and Tokyo.
Giorgi clinched her ninth top 10 win against Caroline Wozniacki in Tokyo last September before losing to US Open Naomi Osaka in the semifinal. Earlier this year Giorgi came through the qualifying round to reach the semifinal in Sydney thanks to wins against Sloane Stephens, Petra Kvitova and Agnieszka Radwanska before losing to Angelique Kerber. She reached her maiden Grand Slam quarter final at Wimbledon and the first Italian to reach the top 8 at Wimbledon since Francesca Schiavone lost to Elena Dementieva in 2009.
