Stosur wins Bad Gastein title

However, her chances of victory appeared slim when the No 3 seed from Italy served for the match at 5-4 in the second set.

Samantha Stosur has profited from a bold change of plan to clinch her second title of the season at the Bad Gastein Open claycourt event in Austria.

The third-seeded Knapp was scheduled to play Polona Hercog of Slovenia in the quarterfinals later Friday.

Knapp had to back up from a sapping three-set semi-final win earlier in the day against Italian top seed Sara Errani and faltered while serving for the championship at 5-4 in the second set.

Stosur will next take on Slovakia’s Anna Karolina Schmiedlova, who kept her winning run going by defeating Annika Beck of Germany 6-2 6-3 a week after winning the title in Bucharest. Stosur won with 3-6, 7-6 and 6-2.

6-2 in a marathon battle that lasted more than two and a half hours.

That match had been held over since Sunday (AEST) because of rain.

In her semifinal against Errani, Knapp rallied from 3-0 down to take the opening set in a tiebreaker.

Knapp continued to put pressure on her opponent with another break in the third game, but that only served to fire Stosur into action as she won four of the last five games to set up a tie-break. Coming to Bad Gastein, she had failed to win a match since taking the title in Nuremberg two months ago.