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Toronto’s Sharon Fichman wins first career WTA Tour title
The first WTA Tour title of Canadian Sharon Fichman’s professional career may, when all is said and done, end up being the most unexpected one.
Fichman and American partner Maria Sanchez, who were unseeded, pulled out a 2-6, 6-0, [10-4] victory over the No. 3-seeded team of Lucie Hradecka and Michaella Krajicek Saturday in Auckland, New Zealand to win the doubles title and a cheque for $15,000.
The maiden victory capped off a terrific first week of the season for the 23-year-old Fichman, who also won three qualifying matches to qualify for the main draw in singles and upset No. 4 Sorana Cirstea of Romania in the first round.
After opening with a 2-0 lead, Fichman and Sanchez dropped six straight games and the first set.
But then, their far more experienced opponents just fell apart.
At 0-5, 30-30, Krajicek double-faulted. At set point against them, Hradecka drilled her partner in the back of the head with a ball.
The bagel set secured, Fichman and Sanchez remained the calmer team in the tiebreak that decided the match. Fichman, in particular, picked up her game considerably.
And their opponents just made error after error.
“We kind of looked at each other and were, like, ‘They’re playing well and they’re a good team’. But I felt like our energy dropped a little bit,” Fichman said in her post-match television interview. “We collectively agreed that for the next 30 or 40 minutes we would go as hard as we can – high energy. And we started playing better.”
Meanwhile, Hradecka (who has won three Grand Slam titles in doubles and mixed doubles, and been a finalist on three other occasions) and Krajicek, formerly a top-30 ranked player in singles, just imploded.
“I was so nervy on the court the whole match,” Hradecka said.
Fichman said she and her partner were down 1-5 in both sets of their first match earlier in the week, but prevailed. “We could have been out in the first round,” Fichman said.
“Since then, we’ve just been having fun and trying to bring our best tennis.
“Looks like we were able to execute that the rest of this week.”
This was Fichman’s third WTA-level doubles final; she was a runner-up in 2009 and again in 2011. But both were on clay, her best surface. This first title came on a hard court.
Overall, the week will do a lot for Fichman’s rankings, even though she still will have to go to Melbourne next week and try to qualify for the Australian Open main draw.
From No. 116 in singles, Fichman will jump about 10 spots although, with the way the rankings operate on a 52-week rollover system, that progress will fall away the following week because of points she earned a year ago at a $25,000 tournament in Florida.
In doubles, her ranking will jump some 15 spots. Fichman will find herself inside the top 70 – a career high.
(Screen grabs from TennisTV.com)
