Cirstea wins Tashkent Open

Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Oct 5 (UNI) Third seed Sorana Cirstea of Romania came back from the brink of defeat to stop the splendid run of fourth seed Sabine Lisicki and lift her first ever career title winning Tashkent Open here today.

In the finals today, 64th ranked Cirstea, came from being a match point down to scrape past Lisicki of Germany 2-6, 6-4, 7-6(7-4) in a two hour eight-minute tussle to bag 22,925 dollar event and 115 WTA points. Finalist Lisicki had to be content with 12,450 dollars and 80 WTA points In probably one of the best matches played in Tashkent in the last 10 years, the 19-year-old Lisicki started where she left yesterday, displaying strong services and solid returns to break Cirstea in the fourth and eighth games to take the first set at 6-2 in just 22 minutes.

In the second set Cirstea who has been undergoing treatment for an injured left wrist, broke the strong serving Lisicki in the very first game after the German player served three double faults in the game.

''This was the turning point of the match Cirstea admitted later.

The 18-year-old Romanian Cirstea kept her cool, and matched the crowd favourite Lisicki stroke for serve, she kept her cool and held her serves to win the set at 6-4 and force the decider third set.

Lisicki probably served poorly in the set serving as many as six double faults.

In the third set Lisicki broke Cirstea in the fourth game to race to a 3-1 lead, but was broken back immediately in the fifth game despite having five advantages.

The trades in services continued till 4-4, Lisicki managed to hold her service in the ninth game to go up 5-4. In the turning point of the match, Lisicki missed converting a match point at 40-30.

Lisicki served a solid second serve, and hit a cross court on Lisicki poor return to draw level and came back in the match.

In the tie break too Lisicki served a double fault and let Cirstea take the mini break, the confident Cirstea took the challenge playing solidly and forcing Lisicki to commit errors to take a 6-4 lead Lisicki in desperate vain to get back tried a difficult cross court which went long, letting the Romanian take her first title.

''I'll cherish the title at Tashkent forever as it is my first title, I was desperate to take my first title,'' Cirstea said after the match.

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