Pune: Eighteen-year-old Elina Svitolina of Ukraine denied veteran Kimiko Date-Krumm a date with history when she overpowered the Japanese 6-2, 6-3 to lift the Indian Open, her maiden WTA title. The summit clash was special for both the players as Svitolina was playing in her first ever WTA final while 42-year-old Date-Krumm was attempting to break USA's Billie Jean King's record of becoming the oldest singles winner on the WTA circuit.
While Date-Krumm had the experience and the guile, Svitolina boasted of powerful ground strokes and a big serve and it was expected that the contrasting styles would make the summit clash an interesting affair. However, that was not to be. It looked like Date-Krumm, who had to come through an engrossing semifinal against Tamarine Tanasugarn on Saturday, had not recovered enough for the final.
Even Svitolina, playing with a straped left thigh, was a shadow of the player who had hammered pre-tournament favourite Andrea Petkovik of Germany in the other semifinal but had enough outgun the veteran. Svitolina kept Date-Krumm on the run and began putting it in action from the third game itself as she moved the Japanese from one corner to other to reverse a 0-40 deficit to get the first break of the match and took a 4-1 lead by the fifth.
Date-Krumm's only chance for a fight back came in the eighth game when she had two break points but the 2010 Junior French Open champion came up with a big serve and sent one down-the-line winner to claim the set. The second set began with Svitolina breaking Date-Krumm in the very first game but any hopes of the Ukrainian running away were dashed by her own tentative play.
With a maiden WTA title in sight, Svitolina began to play safe than go for her strokes and dropped her serve for the first time in the very next game. She managed to break Date-Krumm in the fifth game and ninth game to take home a prize purse of USD 25,000 and 160 ranking points.
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