After becoming the first Brazilian tennis player to reach a WTA Finals final, Luisa Stefani, alongside Hungarian Timea Babos, could not resist the good play of Belgian Elise Mertens and Russian Veronika Kudermetova, and lost by 2 sets to 0, partials of 7/6 (7/4) and 6/1.
The match played this Saturday (8), in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, lasted 1h37.
The first set was difficult for . In the third game, the Brazilian didn’t fit her serve and the European pair took advantage to break the serve. Stefani and Babos then had two break points to equalize the score in the next game, but Mertens and Kudermetova confirmed their serve to go up 3/1.
Still lacking confidence in her serve, Stefani almost had another service broken when the score was 4/2, but her partner saved the break point, broke Mertens/Kudermetova’s serve in the eighth game and turned the game to 5/4.
In the 11th game, Luisa had her serve broken again, but managed to get change in the next game, saving three set points, and took the game to a tie-break, won by the European pair 7/4.
Timea Babos also started to make more mistakes in the second set and Mertens and Kudermetova’s dominance increased — the pair needed just 30 minutes to close the game.
The Hungarian had her serve broken in the second game and allowed her opponents to take a 4/1 lead. Luisa’s serve was also broken in the sixth game and the pair formed by the Russian and the Belgian closed the partial at 6/1 to confirm the WTA Finals title.
The result, however, was far from overshadowing the great campaign of Luisa Stefani and Timea Babos in the competition, which brings together the eight best couples of the season. On the circuit, the duo from Linz, Austria; from Tokyo, Japan; and Strasbourg, France, in addition to the SP Open at level 250.
Before Luisa Stefani, but always among men. Marcelo Melo was runner-up in doubles in the 2014 and 2017 editions and Gustavo Kuerten lifted the singles trophy in 2000, in the edition held in Lisbon, Portugal.
