Google News Ladies Open Lausanne: Clara Burel, Elisabetta Cocciaretto seek maiden title in final!
by ABBEY JOHNSON
Clara Burel and Elisabetta Cocciaretto have set up the Ladies Open Lausanne finale. Both players’ semi-final matches went the distance and both needed to fight from a set down to grab the win. In her semi-final match against compatriot, Diane Parry, Burel needed two hours and 28 minutes to pocket a 4-6, 7-6(2), 6-3 victory.
Burel committed six double faults across the match. She, however, did win 66% of her first-serve points to the ninth seed’s 54%. Of the two players, it was the 90th-ranked Parry who won 58% of her second-serve points to Burel’s 43%.
Both players faced 10 break points each. Burel saved six of these while converting five break points on her opponent’s serve. This is the second time Burel’s reached the final here, in Switzerland. Two years ago, in 2021, she’d finished as the runner-up to Tamara Zidansek’s champion in this particular WTA tournament.
It was also the first time she’d made it to the final of a WTA tournament in her career.
Ladies Open Lausanne: Elisabetta Cocciaretto seeks a career-first
Meanwhile, in the other semi-final, second seed Cocciaretto not only needed three hours and 34 minutes but also had to save a match point before she was able to clinch a 6-7(3), 7-6(6), 7-5 win over Hungary’s Anna Bondar.
Cocciaretto won 66% of her first-serve points to Bondar’s 58%. The latter, however, fared well when it came to winning second-serve points. Bondar won 55% of her second-serve points to the Italian’s 45%. In the second set tie-break, the world no.
155 led 6-5 and had a point to make it to the first WTA final of her career but Cocciaretto was successful in thwarting her. Post-match, in which there were multiple and significant rain delays, Cocciaretto said, “It was maybe the craziest match of my life, for the rain, for the match point, for everything.
I came here without expectations, just to play matches, and I am in the final. So, I will play another match and I am grateful for that”. Like Clara Burel, the Ladies Open Lausanne’s the only second final of Elisabetta Cocciaretto’s singles career so far.
Earlier this year, she’d made her debut in a WTA final at Hobart, in Australia to begin the season. Photo Credit: Ladies Open Lausanne