21 October 2019

Belinda Bencic wins Kremlin Cup and heads to WTA Finals full of confidence

Switzerland's Belinda Bencic completed a comeback victory in the final of the Kremlin Cup, just a day after qualifying for the WTA Finals in Shenzhen next week.

The number three seed qualified for the WTA event by reaching the final, and overcame a one set deficit to beat Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 3-6 6-1 6-1 on Sunday to win the title.

She will head to Shenzhen as one of three first-time qualifiers, along with world number one Ashleigh Barty and US Open champion Bianca Andreescu and was ecstatic after winning the fourth title of her career.

She said: "It feels unbelievable right now and I still can't imagine it. I had no pressure going into this match as we were so happy and celebrating yesterday, this is the cherry on top."

The match initially started badly for Bencic, as Pavlyuchenkova's consistency and 11 winners in the first nine games were too much to handle. But by the end errors crept into the Russian's game and in all 48 of them in the match helped Bencic win 12 of the last 14 games.

Bencic's qualification to Shenzhen confirms the eight players who will play in the WTA Finals next week as she joins Barty, Karolina Pliskova, Simona Halep, Andreescu, Noami Osaka, Petra Kvitova and Elina Svitolina. The finalists have an average age of just 24.

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