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ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — Roberta Vinci snapped a losing streak in finals to beat top-seeded Belinda Bencic 6-4, 6-3 and take the inaugural St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy on Sunday.
It is the 10th career win for No. 16-ranked Vinci in a WTA singles final and ends her 0-4 streak in finals dating back to 2013 — including last year's U.S. Open, where she lost to fellow Italian Flavia Pennetta.
A to-and-fro first set between the top two seeded players saw Vinci broken twice as she landed just 51 percent of her first serves, but she responded with three breaks of her own.
Vinci then held serve throughout the second and broke her 18-year-old Swiss opponent once to take the win in 1 hour, 19 minutes. Vinci dropped just one set in the tournament, against Serbia's Ana Ivanovic in the quarterfinals.
Despite her defeat in the final, the 11th-ranked Bencic is set to rise into the WTA top 10 for the first time Monday.
Earlier, the top-seeded pair of Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza cruised to victory in the doubles final, beating Vera Dushevina and Barbora Krejcikova 6-3, 6-1 in less than an hour.
(This story has been corrected to show the first set was 6-4, not 6-3.)
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