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Marta Kostyuk pipped Varvara Gracheva in the ATX Open finale on Sunday to hoist her first-ever WTA Tour crown. Kostyuk won 6-3, 7-5 in 91 minutes. Gracheva put in 66% of her first serves to the Ukrainian’s 50%. The latter, however, won 65% of her first-serve points and 51% points on return on Gracheva’s first serve.
Both opponents struggled to do well on their second serve. Gracheva won 33% of her second-serve points while Kostyuk won 26%. Kostyuk generated 15 break points on Gracheva’s serve and made good on seven of these. However, she did fail of save five of the six break points she faced.
Kostyuk won 69 points in the match, six more than her rival’s 63.
ATX Open: Marta Kostyuk ends her nascent wait for silverware
After the win, the 20-year-old shared, “Very surreal. I was just playing match by match, and I think this is how you win tournaments, I guess!
It’s not so easy to talk right now, but obviously I'm extremely happy. I’m just happy to be healthy and happy to play tennis and see the crowd enjoy my game”. Following this defeat, Gracheva now trails Kostyuk 2-4 in their rivalry.
Like Kostyuk, the 22-year-old was also looking to win the first WTA title of her career. On Monday, both players’ rankings received a significant boost. While Gracheva was ranked 88th last week, she’s now climbed up 22 places and is placed at the 66th spot.
She’s also seven places away from her career-high of no. 59 in the world that she attained in July 2022. Meanwhile, Kostyuk achieved a new career-high for herself as the world no. 40. Apart from clinching her first WTA event, Marta Kostyuk also posted other milestones at the ATX Open.
This was also the first WTA finale for the Ukrainian who’d previously been defeated in the four semi-finals she’d played previously. Photo Credit: WTA Twitter