Carreno Busta edges past Gregoire Burquier for his 10th title of the season

It hasn't been a great quality final the one that took place last night in the ATP Challenger of Cordenons, both athletes didn't play their best tennis, which was a shame considering the great tennis both showed in their way to the final.
French player, Gregoire Burquier started the match with a lot of tension, he knew his opponent wasn't going to give him free points, so he had to be aggressive and take him by surprise with sudden acceleration and other variations, but those attempts at first were all due to end up with errors. After the match he would indeed said: "I didn't play my best tennis, I don't know maybe because it's a final and maybe because it's him, I know he won a lot of tournaments and I was a bit afraid of him and only in the end I saw that I could play well, but it was too late, you know, he's very solid, so I needed my best tennis to win"
On the other side of the net, the hot-form Spanish seemed to struggle finding the right null and hence his gamed lacked of a true aggressive mindset for most of the first and part of the second set. 
"It was difficult" said Carreno Busta at the end of the match, "it's strange because I think I played bad, not my best tennis, he played very nervously, so it was really strange"
Yet this was quite enough because Burquier was too erratic and his winners couldn't fully make up for the errors. The first set ended 6 games to 4 for Carreno, but despite the close scoreline, it didn't really seem he could lose this match.
The second set started with a good reaction from Gregoir, who took a break lead in the first game and hold for 2-0, but once again his level couldn't keep up and Carreno Busta immediately broke back. On 3-all Burquier clearly started to feel the moment and got broken from 30-0 with four unforced errors in a row. The break gave Carreno Busta the right boost of confidence to finally try to go more for his shots and that gave the final a last taste of quality, because contrary to the public expectations, Burquier finally started to play his game and the last few games were the best of the match. Nonetheless Carreno Busta could hold in both his service games and close the match with a terrific backhand winner worth of his 10th title of the season, the 3rd Challenger.
For Burquier remains the satisfaction of a good week, despite the bitter loss in this final: "It's been a positive week for me, I had a very difficult season so far, but here I defeated very good players this week and felt my game, so I hope it's another season starting for the next tournaments".
Despite his ranking Carreno Busta won't play the US Open, but will play two more Challengers in Italy in Como and Genova, before going to Asia, he feels quite comfortable about going to the ATP Tour: "I played in Portugal an ATP and reached the Semifinal, so I think I am ready to play with tops" and at the question if he's ready for that on hard courts too, smiling he said "I will try to".

the hardworker who dared to dream big: Marion Bartoli wins Wimbledon

A dream that lasted two weeks was the one that just ended with the best possible finale for Marion Bartoli. The 28 year old French woman was playing her 47th Slam of the career and clearly wasn't among the faves when the tournament started despite having been on a Final on the most famous grass of the world once before, in 2007, when en route defeated Justin Henin before falling to the hands of Venus Williams.
Her run that year came as a surprise and despite having shown to be a top player through the years she never reached a slam final again before this week. Marion capitalized a draw that surprisingly fell apart because of upsets and injuries, with her half being deprived of Sharapova (l.t. Larcher de Brito in R2), Azarenka (injured, w/o to Pennetta in 2R), Wozniacki (injured, l.t. Cetkovska in R2) and finally Kvitova, the only Wimbledon champion left when the quarter finals were set, who lost to another dream-runner, Kirsten Flipkens from Belgium.
But if the ranking of the players she defeated en route to this title might make her run seem an easy

one, it was everything buy easy, because some of the players she had to take down are always dangerous on grass courts as it was the case with Italian Camila Giorgi, who recently had also defeated the French woman in Strasbourg. It was impressive, nonetheless, that Marion lost no sets on her way to the title, edging past some tough battles like the one against Sloane Stephens in the QF, when rain and public seemed to be against her as much as her opponent, but through her experience she could stay calm and take home what eventually happened to be the toughest of her battles in the late stages of this tournament, because in the Semifinals she looked like the only player on court. Flipkens was at her first Slam Semi and the big stage reached thanks to the huge upset over Kvitova seemed to block her rather than pump, so that in no time she was sent back to the shower by the powerful and accurate strokes of Marion which led to a 6-1 6-2 final score.
In the Saturday's final she was facing the girl that was then said to be the favourite for the title, German Sabine Lisicki, the first German to reach a slam final since Steffi Graff in 1999. "Bine" made a terrific run to reach the final by defeating last year winner and current world n°1 Serena Williams in the 4th run and last year's finalist Agnieszka Radwanska in a tight semifinal ended 9-7 in the third.
But if bookmakers were giving her the favourite, tennis fans knew that the biggest enemy for a German win was Sabine's own mentality: the German, despite the huge talent and perfect game on grass had never been that far of a slam and often has been proved to be mentally frail whenever it was about seizing a great chance. And the same happened yesterday.
Despite the early break that sent the German 1-0 up, she looked tense on court and immediately Bartoli started to play her aggressive and powerful game that completely crashed Lisicki, like a typhoon does to a raft. The more the match was going on, the most Bartoli looked confident and her shots heavier, while Sabine's serve started to go missing and every service game of hers was in jeopardy. In no time it was 6-1 for the French player.
A toilet break seemed to help the German to find little of her game back as she finally held for the first time in the match for a 1-0 lead in the second set and the very tense and long game that followed was crucial for the final result, because Sabine tried everything to break and re-open the match, but every time she had a chance for a break, Marion could raise her level and save, until after almost 10 minutes she hold and on the burst of confidence go fast up 5-1, while tears and sighs broke on Lisicki's face.
When everything seemed to be lost, 15-40 down on her serve, the German suddenly found the calm of the despair and saved 3 match points before holding and go back on track. Marion the felt little tight and the weight of the wasted chances took their toll in the following service game when with no chance to serve it out she got broken by the German, who kept her momentum going as she hold for 5-4.
Marion was then sent to try serving for the tournament again, but this time she didn't let the chance leak out of her hands and with a terrific ace -only the 2nd of her match- that lifted a small cloud of gypsum from the green grass of the centre court she finally could fall on her knees and let the joy for the first slam of her career flow. With this result Marion will be back in the top 10, as high as 7th, which is her best ranking...what's more, she is the first player with double-handed forehand and backhand to win Wimbledon.

Caroline wins her 20th singles title in Moscow

It was final's day in Moscow and crowd couldn't ask for a better final, two of the highest seeds were involved and their palmares is of a great quality too: Stosur, 1st seed here in Moscow, entered the torunament as world number 9, but no longer than one year ago she was capable of defeating Serena Williams in New York to win her first title of a Grand Slam. On the other side of the net, waiting to fight over every ball as usual, there was Caroline Wozniacki, former world number 1 and nowadays "only" 11th and willing to get back to the eden of tennis.

The two had played eachother a few times already with Stosur leading the series for 3 matches to 2. For that reason, but not only, she was heading into this final as the favourite. Sam won their only two matches on Hard and came into this final with a lot less time spent on court, while Caroline, despite giving great signs of developement in her game, struggled a lot closing her matches both in quarter- and semifinal.

Nevertheless, Wozniacki entered the match with a clear idea of how to play Stosur, while the Australian looked clearly surprised by the newest attitude Caroline showed early in the first set.

The Danish player indeed, after having been critizised for her too passive gameplan, has been working all season in order to be more aggressive, but -as her fall in the ranking suggests- she never found a good balance between her naturally defensive game and the new offensive one. But that was before heading to Moscow, here Wozniacki surprisingly showed a great consistency even off her "unlucky" Forehand side. Of course she is still rough and often withdrew to her old defensive self, but contrary to what happened throughout the season, when she tried to be aggressive, she wouldn't do it brainlessly and she finished every match with positive winners-unforced errors ratio. 

The first set kind of followed that path described above, with Caroline often moving Stosur around the court hitting powerful and accurate shots from both wings. On the side of the net the Australian kind of suffered the blow and couldn't harm the Danish with the backhand, but Wozniacki never let her run around the ball for her famouse inside-out forehands, so that the few times Sam tried that had to open too quickly and missed a lot of balls.

In a very convincing fashion the Dane took the first set for 6 games to 2.

But as it often happened during the week, she pretty much couldn't handle the return of flame that Stosur tried in the second set. The Australian looked way more sure of her shots and most of all of her serve, that was much of missing in the first set. Wozniacki tried her chances back and could break back to catch her opponent evening out again on 4-4. Caroline had no time to enjoy that comeback that soon faced more break points and this time Stosur could serve for the 2nd set.

Sam didn't let this chance slip away from her hands and with a sliced service-ace closed the set and re-opened the match.

At the beginning of the third set all the momentum was on Stosur's side and Caroline could feel it like a stab when she was broken to love on the opening game. Stosur tried to extend her lead, but on 2-0, Wozniacki pretty much shacked all her fears out and started to play again as if the match had just started, running on every ball and being aggressive everytime she had the chance to.

As like as it happened in the 2nd partial the two players were tie at 4-4 and yet again Caroline fast found herself facing two breakpoints that this time would send Stosur serving for the match. With two very brave services she saved them and went up 5-4. 

Stosur had no signs of will to give up and hold with ease to tie up again, but Wozniacki found a great service game this time and went up 6-5 demanding another show-off of corague from Stosur.

The Australian went up in the early fifteens, but then experienced a couple of terrific returns from Wozniacki, who, at the very first match point, could close the match on a wide forehand crosscourt from Stosur: 6-2 4-6 7-5 in a high quality and drama final to end the season of WTA tournaments.

For Wozniacki is the second title of the season after the one won few weeks ago in Seul, but most of all the first Premier success since New Haven 2011.