Saturday’s New Haven final was an absolute cracker as Daria Gavrilova won her first WTA title, fighting back from a set down to beat Dominika Cibulkova, 4-6 6-3 6-4 in two hours and 45 minutes. It was the best i’ve seen Cibulkova play all year and her forehand was lethal early doors. Gavrilova kept battling hard, managing to do some damage with her own forehand and force a decider. In the end, Gavrilova’s pluckiness and defence, particularly in the key moments, were a huge factor in her win. I’m thrilled for Dasha – one of my favourite personalities on tour and very well deserved!
The final is well worth a watch back on WTA TV. Anyway, here are the highlights from a superb final.
The attention is now firmly on New York and the start of the 2017 US Open. For anyone going to the US Open, here’s my comprehensive guide from visiting the tournament last year.
And if you’ve ever thought about attending Cincy, loved this post from Steph on Twitter.
Saturday was media day at the US Open with the likes of Karolina Pliskova, Simona Halep, Angelique Kerber, Garbiñe Muguruza and Madison Keys all in press. You can watch all of their press conferences on the US Open website HERE.
An update on Angelique Kerber’s coaching situation.
Congrats to Karolina!
This was a wonderful touch by the USTA.
Loved this – Victoria Duval and Allie Kiick played each other in the final round of qualifying.
This was sweet!
https://www.instagram.com/p/BYQu5E1A0Ow/?hl=en&taken-by=monicaace93
A pair of world number ones!
A pair of posts are up on the blog to preview the 2017 US Open draw – post #1 is a bumper preview breaking down the draw into 16 sections including records for the top 16 seeds in New York.
Post #2 is a special preview for the highlight of the first round matches between Simona Halep and Maria Sharapova, which is up first in Monday’s night session on Arthur Ashe stadium. At the time of writing, readers of Moo’s Tennis Blog can barely split the pair with 51% going for Halep after > 220 votes.
The madness starts on Monday at 11am local time (4pm UK time). A heads up that it’s going to be a busy few weeks for me at work. I’m going to try my best to cover the tournament in its entirety here on the blog but if I go missing, you’ll know why. In the meantime, i’m de-stressing with bread.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BYTT54lF0dg/?hl=en&taken-by=mootennis
Moo's Tennis Blog 
I agree with James; for me, this was the best of finals. It had everything; a player winning her first ever WTA final, highly competitive tennis from both players resulting in a close scoreline right up until the end (some of Daria’s play was reminiscent of Aga at her best!), a champion so likeable that you really wanted her to win, and great sportspersonship (sorry, but ‘sportsmanship’ just doesn’t sound right) from the runner-up afterwards, both at the net and in the speeches afterwards.
Well done to both players.
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Nodding along to all of this, Graham!
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Just thought of ‘sportswomanship,’
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Hard to believe its only her first title?
And Cibulkova… after making 7 finals last year she’s currently only made one this year
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The Gav and The Cib are two of my favorite short players, so unfortunately one has to lose.
I was very happy to see “Dasha with the Flying Mane” win her first WTA tournament.
For most of this year Cibulkova hasn’t shown the energy level of last year. The last few weeks The Cib’s stomach seems more pooched out than normal, which makes me suspect she might be pregnant, but this could be my overworked imagination.
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Or it could just be a natural post marriage weight gain…
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