French Garcia upsets new No.1 Halep to win China Open

World
Europe

French Caroline Garcia Sunday crowned the final WTA China Open in Beijing after a tough 6-4, 7-6 (7/3) victory over Romanian Simona Halep, claiming her second title in China.

Before the final, Halep defeated Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko with a dominant 6-2, 6-4 victory at semi-final on Saturday. Garcia also won her 10th straight match, knocking out two-time Wimbledon winner Petra Kvitova.

Garcia extended her winning streak to 11 matches and added to her Wuhan Open triumph last week. The current world number 15 will climb to ninth in the rankings on Monday, marking her Top 10 debut.

Halep, who will take over as number one in the next rankings, broke Garcia's serve in the first game of the match but the 23-year-old hit back immediately, breaking the Romanian twice to win the first set.

Garcia shows no signs of slowing down. /Getty Image

With the score tied at 3-3 in the second set, Garcia saved nine consecutive break points in the seventh game, before taking a 4-3 lead but Halep recovered to force a tiebreak.

The Frenchwoman became the first to complete the Wuhan and Beijing double and is now on track to qualify for the season-ending WTA finals, as her win took her past Briton Johanna Konta to number eight in the Race to Singapore rankings.

Halep holds. /Getty Image ‍

Halep's record at finals this year is underwhelming, with the 26-year-old winning just one of her five finals so far – the Madrid Open in May.

13km

Source(s): Reuters