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World No. 9 Belinda Bencic saved three match points in her 12th WTA Tour win in Abu Dhabi and her second title of the season.
Bencic will need to be resilient to beat eighth seed Lyudmila Samsonova 1-6, 7-6(8), 6-4 in a thrilling 168-minute title showdown in UAE City .
Those numbers may give Samsonova confidence that she can claim her fifth WTA Tour title in five finals, and she is also unbeaten against Bencic.
Samsonova appeared to be in control for most of the match, but Bencic fought back to secure her lead over Alina Sabalenka for the 2023 WTA Tour lead.
Sabalenka, unbeaten this season, will return to action in Dubai.
Bencic joins Sabalenka as the only two-time champions so far this year. The Swiss’ Adelaide International 2 trophy a month ago now joins Abu Dhabi’s laurels.
Bencic needed his first victory over Samsonova in four attempts to make it happen.
In the 2021 Berlin final, Samsonova defeated Bencic and won her first career championship. She also beat Bencic twice in the finals of the Luxembourg and Billie Jean Gold Cups that same year.
Samsonova played flawlessly in the first set, making only five unforced errors in 16 winning games. Nonetheless, Bencic held on throughout the tense second set, saving three break points at 5-5 and saving three break points with some of the best serve and stroke points of the match. a break point.
Samsonova scored the championship points 6-4, 6-5, 8-7 in the tiebreaker that decided the second set.
Bencic, however, survived every narrow win, eventually taking control of the game and forcing turnovers at critical moments.
With Bencic at 9-8 for the second set point, Samsonova fumbled a backhand into the net to put her opponent back in the game.
Bencic would go on to win the match on the back of a momentum switch as Bencic broke Samsonova’s forehand return at 3-2 in the third set, forcing her to miss again.
Bencic won with 19 fewer unforced errors than Samsonova, who totaled 20 more winners.
The Swiss star will move up one place in the WTA rankings and is set to sweep Qatar at the Doha Open next week.
Bencic will face qualifying in the first round of next week’s Doha Open.
READ MORE: Returning Iga Swiatek headlines coveted Doha Open
article Belinda Bencic becomes WTA Tour champion with brave Abu Dhabi title appeared first on Tennis365.com.
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