More Title Droughts End

The ending the title droughts continued to be a theme of fall tennis as a couple significant droughts were ended.  The most significant of those occurred at the biggest tournament of the week, the WTA Premier event in Moscow.

She has long been the highest ranked player not to win a title, but this week Dominika Cibulkova finally got it done, in her 4th career final.  She defeated Kaia Kanepi in the final in Moscow 3-6 7-6(1) 7-5.  This has been a great year for Cibulkova, who reached a slam quarterfinal at Wimbledon and now has her first title.  She will be the world no. 17 in tomorrow's rankings.

While we're in Moscow, this was a dual event, so I'll mention the first ever all-Serb ATP final occurred today (and it didn't include Djokovic).  Janko Tipsarevic won his second ATP title, defeating the defending champion Viktor Troicki 6-4 6-2.  This has been an absolute breakout year for Tipsarevic and he would get my vote for most improved player.

The other men's ATP 250 tournament was in Stockholm, Sweden, where Gael Monfils ended a title drought that lasted 51 weeks (Montpeiller last year).  He defeated Jarkko Nieminen in the final 7-5 3-6 6-2 after knocking off Milos Raonic is yesterday's semis.  Monfils will still be hard pressed to make the ATP's year end championships though because he made the final last year in Paris.

And while isn't a drought as significant as Monfils' or Cibulkova's, Victoria Azarenka won her 3rd title of 2011 in Luxembourg, but it was her first title since Miami and Marbella in back-to-back week early in the year.  She defeated Monica Niculescu (who has had a very nice year herself) in the final 6-2 6-2 for her 8th career title, and she did not drop a set all week.

This was the last week of the WTA regular season, so next week Wozniacki, Sharapova, Kvitova, Azarenka, Li, Zvonareva, Stosur, and Radwanska will be in Istanbul, Turkey for the year end championships.  I am hoping to post a preview of that event tomorrow.  Then the following week Russia will meet the Czech Republic in Moscow for the Fed Cup, as well as the International tournament of champions will take place in Bali.  It looks like the field for Bali will be a good one:  Bartoli, Petkovic, Pavlyuchenkova, Lisicki, Vinci, Hantuchova, Ivanovic (WC/defending champion), and Peng (WC).