Radwanska beats Svitolina to take Connecticut Open title

The Polish star won the first five games of the first set and the first four in the second against her Czech opponent. It’s the first time I played her ever. Radwanska won the Emirates Airline U.S. Open Series, a seven-week season that enables players to boost their prize money at the Open. “I’m just so happy to win a title here”. She broke Kvitova again in the fourth game to go 4-0 up and did not face any break point in whole set to take the first set 6-1.

“Thank you so much. for giving me that wild card”, Radwanska laughed during her winner’s speech. “Everything was working for me”. “For the rest, I don’t think this way”.

For Svitolina, 21, this was her first WTA Premier tournament final.

“I didn’t really know that I have chance to win that”, she said. “It’s really tough to play against her when she’s getting each ball and playing so deep”.

Svitolina will have to come up with a special kind of game plan to spring the upset.

“I think I need to play my game”, Svitolina said”. I need to be calm with my plan. “We’ll see. I’m going to sit down with my coach and go from there”.

Kvitova, of the Czech Republic, who had played in the last four finals here and won the last two, tried to stay true to her hard-hitting form, but she said cold and exhausted legs didn’t allow her to hit quite as hard as she normally does. With Aga, she’s not playing very hard, but she’s using your speed, she’s putting everything in.

But at least she won two. Even when you feel it’s victor, she still can catch it and rallies continue. Now ranked No. 15 in the world, it’s her lowest ranking since May, 2011 (No. 18). The No. 2 seeds advanced with a 2-6, 6-3, 10-8, win over the third-seeded Slovakian duo of Andreja Klepac and Katarina Srebotnik. The second seeded Mirza and Niculescu were able to save nine break point attempts from Klepac and Srebotnik.

In the evening semifinal, Carreno Busta took down John Millman 6-4 7-6 (7-5). In the championship set, Philippoussis claimed a 6-2 win over James Blake of Fairfield.