First singles title of the year for Petra Martic in Lausanne

Petra Martic won her first singles title of the year by beating Olga Danilovic in Lausanne, 6-4, 6-2.

The Croatian – once ranked as high as world No 14 – is currently 85th in the world, and went into the match having lost her previous match against Danilovic, at the Australian Open last year, 7-5, 3-6, 6-4.

In fact, this was Martic’s first appearance in a final since Zhengzhou in 2019, when she lost to Karolina Pliskova.

But she has been on fine form this week, dropping only one set (in the semi-final, against Caroline Garcia), and has beaten three seeds to get to the final – Garcia (seeded sixth), Belinda Bencic (the second seed, in the quarter-final), and Nuria Parrizas Diaz (seeded fifth, in the first round).

Danilovic too can be proud of her efforts, making it through qualifying to achieve the best-ever result by a qualifier at this tournament.

But she may regret not capitalising on her chances in the first set, when she was 4-3 up but then lost three games in a row, allowing the Croatian to gain momentum.

And Martic dominanted the second set, breaking twice and winning nine of the last 11 games to take the title and move up to world No 55 – once again knocking on the door of the top 50.

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