Her nerves settled, Sharapova began to hit her stride, breaking Sabalenka again to go 6-5 up before closing out the set. The Belarusian, playing her first WTA final, came back in the second set, opening up a 5-1 lead before serving to send the match into a decider, but Sharapova once again fought back to erase the deficit. The Russian, who sent down seven aces during the contest, double faulted when facing a break point to gift Sabalenka the game and send the set into a tiebreak. Sharapova, whose last title came at the Italian Open in May 2015, had three match points but Sabalenka survived them all before double faulting with the score at 8-8 to hand Sharapova another opportunity. This time, the Russian made no mistake, firing down a powerful serve to seal the victory.

Source: bd News24 October 15, 2017 15:45 UTC