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Russia’s Diana Shnaider claimed her first title of the year with a hard-fought victory over Leylah Fernandez in Tokyo on Sunday, and she was eager to share the news with her mom. The Pan Pacific Open is a women’s professional tennis tournament held in Tokyo.
The world number 13 beat Canada’s Fernandez 6-4, 5-7, 6-2 to win the Pan Pacific Open and then went straight to her phone to call home.
“I was calling my mom; I wanted to hear her voice after winning a title and share a first few moments with her,” the 22-year-old Shnaider said. “She said, ‘You’ve just finished, and already you’re calling me’.”
It was Shnaider’s first title since Monterrey in August last year and the sixth of her career. She looked to be cruising to victory after winning the first set and taking a 4-0 lead in the second.
World number 23 Fernandez came back to win the second set, but Shnaider regained control to close out the match.
“It was definitely a tight, close match,” Shnaider said. “It makes me even happier that I was able to fight for the title and in the end win it.”
Fernandez went into the final with 16 wins in her previous 20 matches.
That run included victory at the Singapore Open in September and a runner-up finish at last week’s Ningbo Open in China behind world number one Elena Rybakina.
Fernandez struggled with her serve, double-faulting five times throughout the match and landing only half of her first serves in the first set. A double fault happens when a player misses both serve attempts and loses the point.
She got it together when it mattered, though, stunning Shnaider in the second set with some tenacious tennis to even the score at one set each.
Shnaider regained her composure when she returned for the final set, breaking Fernandez’s serve twice and clinching the title with her first match point. Breaking serve means winning a game while the opponent is serving, and a match point is a point that would win the match.
She was appearing in her first final of the year after losing in the semi-finals four times before this week.
“Very happy that I was able to win the title,” she said. “It definitely means a lot to me, to my team, and my family to finish on a high note.”
Fernandez shed tears as she thanked her family in her on-court interview and said that she had received some “bad news."
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