Jabeur ur becomes mes first Arab woman to win WTA title

LONDON: Ons Jabeur became the first Arab woman to win a WTA title on Sunday when the Tunisian beat Daria Kasatkina of Russia 7-5, 6-4 in an engrossing hour and a half tussle in Birmingham.

Jabeur, the second seed, gained a measure of revenge as she secured her first title at the expense of Kasatkina, one of two women to have beaten her in her previous finals appearances.

Jabeur, ranked 24 in the world, has been in fine form this season where she ranks alongside former world number one Ashleigh Barty in terms of matches (28) won.

The 26-year-old held her nerve despite Kasatkina breaking back when Jabeur served for the first set at 5-4.

Jabeur, though, broke world number 35 Kasatkina immediately and this time she made no mistake in serving to win the set.

Kasatkina had beaten Jabeur twice in threeset affairs.

However, her opponent did not give her a sniff of a chance of a repeat of forcing her into a decider as she raced into a 4-0 lead in the second set.

Kasatkina, winner of two titles this season, fought her way back to 4-3 down but the Tunisian remained focused, sealing the title on her first match point when the Russian neted.

HUMBERT UPSETS RUBLEV: France’s Ugo Humbert pulled off an upset win over fourth seed Andrey Rublev Sunday to claim the biggest title of his career in the final of the Halle grass court tournament.

Humbert, ranked 31 in the world, earned a 6-3, 7-6 (7/4) victory over world number seven Russia’s Rublev in one hour, 24 minutes.

Having won two ATP 250 titles in his career, this was the first tournament win at 500 level for the 22-year-old, who has won all three finals he has reached on the tour.

Ater breaking Rublev to go 5-3 up in the opening set, in which he powered down five aces, Humbert converted his fourth set point in a hard fought game.

Rublev made precious few mistakes in the second set until losing his serve at 5-4 in the tiebreak, when Humbert held his serve to convert his first match point.

Humbert had already thrown down a marker earlier in the week in Halle when he knocked out French Open semi-finalist Alexander Zverev in the second round.

Rublev had been the last remaining seed in the draw from the quarter-finals onwards ater top players like Roger Federer and world number two Daniil Medvedev crashed out in the early rounds.