Belinda Bencic becomes WTA Tour match wins leader with gutsy Abu Dhabi title win

James Richardson
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Belinda Bencic celebrates
Belinda Bencic

World No 9 Belinda Bencic saved three match points on her way to a 12th WTA Tour match win and second title of the season in Abu Dhabi.

Bencic needed to be resilient to overcome eighth seed Liudmila Samsonova 1-6, 7-6(8), 6-4 in a stirring 168-minute championship showdown in the Emirati city.

The stats might have given Samsonova every confidence she could secure her fifth WTA Tour title in five finals and she had also been unbeaten against Bencic.

For much of the contest, Samsonova appeared to be in control, but Bencic fought back to ensure that she moved ahead of Aryna Sabalenka as the WTA Tour 2023 match-win leader.

Sabalenka remains unbeaten this season and will return to action in Dubai.

Bencic joins Sabalenka as the only two-time winners so far this year. The Swiss’ Adelaide International 2 trophy from a month ago is now joined by the Abu Dhabi crown.

Bencic needed to triumph against Samsonova for the first time in four tries in order for that to happen.

In the 2021 Berlin final, Samsonova defeated Bencic to earn her first career championship. That same year, she also defeated Bencic twice more, in Luxembourg and the Billie Jean King Cup Finals.

Samsonova played flawlessly in the opening set, making only five unforced errors among 16 winners. Bencic, though, managed to hang on throughout the tense second set to make her move, saving three break points at 5-5 with some of her best serves and groundstrokes of the match.

In the tiebreak that decided the second set, Samsonova would hold championship points at 6-4, 6-5, and 8-7.

However, Bencic survived each of those close shaves, eventually controlling the rallies and forcing errors at crucial moments.

On Bencic’s second set point at 9-8, it would be Samsonova who misfired a backhand into the net allowing her opponent back into the match.

Bencic broke Samsonova at 3-2 in the third set by forcing another error with a forehand service return, and she would go on to win the match off the back of that momentum switch.

Bencic claimed the win with 19 less unforced errors than Samsonova, who had hit 20 more winners overall.

The Swiss star will move up one place on the WTA Rankings and is set to nip across to Qatar for next week’s Doha Open.

Bencic is set to face a qualifier in the first round of next week’s Doha Open.

READ MORE: Returning Iga Swiatek headlines mouthwatering Doha Open

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