Washington, Aug 5: Seventh-seeded Magdalena Rybarikova of Slovakia beat unseeded Andrea Petkovic of Germany 6-4, 7-6 (2) on Sunday to win the Citi Open for the second consecutive year.
Rybarikova, who is ranked 43rd, improved her record at the hard-court tournament to 10-0. Half of her four career titles have come in Washington.
"I would love to play (here) all the time, maybe," said Rybarikova, who is ranked 43rd.
She fell behind 4-0 before taking eight consecutive games to win the first set and go up 2-0 in the second. There was one other blip for Rybarikova, who was broken while serving for the match at 5-4 in the last set. "I was really tight and my arm was kind of shaking," Rybarikova said.
But she pulled herself together in the tiebreaker, explaining later that she was "really, really calm and relaxed."
Petkovic, in contrast, was feeling fatigued out down the stretch. She had a tough turnaround, coming back to play in the final a little more than 15 hours after her rain-delayed semifinal finished past 2 a.m. Sunday.
By the time she got a massage and ate something and wound down, Petkovic said, she didn't get to bed until 5 a.m. and got only four or five hours of sleep.
"That lack of energy -- it doesn't affect my body so much, but it affects always my emotions and my mental state. So I was getting really emotional out there when I normally stay really calm," said Petkovic, a former top-10 player who is coming back from a series of injuries and is currently ranked 64th.
