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Dominika Cibulkova captured her first WTA final since 2014 at the Katowice Open, taking out three-time finalist Camila Giorgi, 6-4, 6-0.

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Giorgi had reached her third straight Katowice final, but her hopes of a first title in Poland took an immediate hit as Cibulkova raced out to a 4-0 lead. The 2014 Australian Open finalist served for the opening set at 5-2 when Giorgi's signature firepower briefly lit up the stadium, nabbing one of the two breaks back and holding break points to level the contest at five games apiece.

Cibulkova was in her second final of 2016 - having narrowly missed out on the Abierto Mexicano Telcel title to Sloane Stephens - and managed to hold her nerve to serve out the set on the second time of asking, and promptly proceeded to win the final seven games of the match.

"Thank you for coming and supporting me all week," Giorgi said in her runner-up speech. "It was really nice to be here this year again, and I hope to come back next year."

The fiery Slovak was forced to miss five months of 2015 after having surgery on her Achilles - addressing a bone spur issue that had been bothering her for the better part of three years. A former World No.10, Cibulkova saw her ranking fall as low as No.62, but Sunday's title returns her back into the Top 40 with a chance to be seeded for the upcoming French Open.

"I would like to thank the city of Katowice for making such a friendly event for us," Cibulkova said in her victory speech, adding, "Especially for me, it was very nice to drive three hours for a title!

"I was really surprised playing for the first time in Poland, it feels like home. I really appreciate it, so thank you."

Cibulkova finished her speech dedicating the win to her team, particularly her father, who was celebrating his birthday on Sunday.

"I think this is the best gift!

Equally ebullient in press, the Slovak discussed how she turned around an 0-2 head-to-head and a difficult swing in Indian Wells and Miami, where she lost tight matches to Agnieszka Radwanska and Garbiñe Muguruza.

"I would say today I was prepared very good for Camila. My tactic was to go for it, and I was doing it 100%. I was just playing really solid, going for the shots really strong and I was reading her game really well. When I had an easy shot, I always made it, and this was very important today. In the second set, I was going for it even more, and that's why I won today. I wasn't afraid.

"You have to go by small steps, and this is just a small step for me to get to where I want to be. I proved that through the last matches - how I finished them - that I'm a really good player and this is how I want to play.

"I would say this my top level of tennis and this is why I worked so hard to get here. I want to go further for sure and after some bad matches in Indian Wells and Miami, this gives me really positive energy.

"When you lose tight matches, it's not the same as when you win them."

In the doubles final, Japanese duo Eri Hozumi and Miyu Kato survived a match tie-break against Russians Valentyna Ivakhnenko and Marina Melnikova, 3-6, 7-5, 10-8.

Dominika Cibulkova wrote the final chapter of a fairytale season by upsetting World No.1 Angelique Kerber to win the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global.

Watch interviews and highlights from Singapore on the WTA Facebook page!

One week on from a painful opening night defeat to Kerber, Cibulkova gained revenge in spectacular fashion, powering to a 6-3, 6-4 victory in an hour and 16 minutes.

"I have no words, coming here for the first time, the biggest tournament of my life. I still don't know how I won, I put the ball over the net and it went in; it's the happiest moment of my life," Cibulkova said in her on-court interview.

Cibulkova dominated from the outset, bossing the baseline exchanges to romp through the first set. There was no let-up in the second, as the Slovak continued to attack anything remotely short with gusto.

At 3-3, the pressure paid off, the German firing wide to slip a break behind. For all the spectacular winners from the back of the court, arguably the most impressive aspect of the World No.8's performance was her serve; a remarkable 83% first-serve percentage neutralized Kerber's famed return game.

The only wobble came as she closed in on the biggest title of her career. Three match points came and went before Lady Luck intervened, the ball clipping the tape and dropping dead onto Kerber's side.

"It wasn't easy to go on the court after two losses but I was mentally very strong and I knew I played well in the first two matches, I was just a little bit unlucky. Then at the end I was lucky!"

The masterclass - which featured 28 winners and only 14 unforced errors - was a fitting end to a dramatic debut at the WTA Finals.

After falling in three sets to Kerber in her opening round-robin match, she was roundly beaten by Madison Keys to leave her hopes hanging by a thread. However, victory over Simona Halep in her third outing saw her sneak into the semifinals, where she then staged a brilliant comeback against Svetlana Kuznetsova.

She is the first debutante to lift the title at the season-ending showpiece since Petra Kvitova in 2011, and the achievement will see her climb to a career-high No.5 when the new rankings are released on Monday.

The WTA Finals ended on an appropriate, if not entirely satisfying, note Sunday in Singapore. Pulled to her right by Angelique Kerber's so-so forehand, Dominika Cibulkova stepped over, adjusted to an extreme western grip and laid into a cross-court forehand. When the ball smacked the net tape, it had enough spin to crawl over and die on Kerber's side of the net.

Due largely to the mental yips, Cibulkova had failed to convert three previous match points. But serendipity earned her the fourth, and a 6-3, 6-4 upset of top-ranked Kerber in 1 hour, 16 minutes. It ended the official WTA tournament year on a surprising note.

"I have no words," the elated winner chirped in her on-court interview afterward.

She wasn't the only one.


Dominika Cilbulkova lost two matches in Singapore before rolling to the WTA Finals title. REUTERS
Kerber stood by, eyes glazed, through the trophy presentation. It seemed that her mind seemed a million miles away, which was not a bad place to go under the circumstances.

Granted, Cibulkova played exceptionally well in the final, while Kerber never got a handle on her game. On the other hand, it's fair to wonder what on earth Cibulkova was doing playing in the final. The details constitute a pretty strong case against the hybrid round-robin/knockout format, which will also be employed by the ATP in a few weeks at its own year-end shootout.

Let's set the table: Cibulkova, who will rise to No. 5 on Monday, is a useful player. A pugnacious, energetic, 27-year-old Slovak, she has been to the quarterfinals at every Grand Slam event. She has played in one major final, losing the 2014 Australian Open title match against Li Na. Cibulkova rode that achievement into the top 10 but soon after went into a terrible slump.

Consistency and loss of nerve have always been Cibulkova's bugaboos, and those are precisely the qualities that separate Grand Slam champions from the puzzling contenders and also-rans. You have to win seven consecutive matches over two weeks against a (presumably) escalating class of player to triumph at a major. It's a monumental ask.

Round-robin based events allow a player with a loss, or even two (as we've seen for the second year in a row in Singapore), to win the championship. Kerber's record in this week's WTA Finals was 4-1; Cibulkova finished 3-2, but she's the champ. It turns the most fundamental premise in tennis upside down.

You have to take a close look at Cibulkova's run to really appreciate all the irony in this scenario. Kerber bested Cibulkova in the first round-robin match for either player. Then Madison Keys crushed Cibulkova, giving up just five games. With the first two rounds of the round robin complete, winless Cibulkova's path to qualifying for the knockout stage was barely more than a mathematical oddity. She had to beat WTA No. 4 Simona Halep in straight sets and Kerber had to beat Keys in straights as well.

After Cibulkova did her part with a win against Halep, she wouldn't even watch or track the Kerber-Keys match on a live-scoring module. She went shopping and, as she told the press before the final, got the news that she had qualified when she returned to the hotel: "I started to get messages like, 'Congratulations, you are there!' We were just jumping and really, really happy."

EDITOR'S PICKS

Cibulkova upsets Kerber to win WTA Finals title
Dominika Cibulkova put on a show of unflappable tennis to upset top-ranked Angelique Kerber 6-3, 6-4 to win the WTA Finals title on Sunday.

Cibulkova's win underscores competitive nature of WTA
Of all the players in this year's WTA Finals field, who would have thought Dominika Cibulkova would have won the title? Her run in Singapore was a fitting end to a thrilling season.
Playing with house money against Kerber, Cibulkova hit the jackpot: She put 83 percent of her first serves into play, and her winners-to-unforced errors stats were nearly a reverse image of Kerber's. Cibulkova had 28 winners to 14 unforced, while Kerber had 14 and 23, respectively.


Furthermore, Cibulkova created an interesting template for how to play the top-ranked player. She served predominantly down the middle, keeping Kerber from taking charge with her return. When returning, Cibulkova went after Kerber's weakness, her second serve. Cibulkova played from on or inside the baseline, took time away from Kerber, found the angles and kept the ball deep. We'll see more women trying to implement those tactics come January.

It's no wonder Kerber looked so disenchanted after the match. When the players tell the media that they take all their rivals seriously, they're just reciting from the media-training handbook. A player who wins has every right not to want to go back out and play the person she has just defeated again, for even greater stakes.

"It wasn't easy, after two losses to play Halep," Cibulkova said. "First two matches I was a little unlucky. Today I was lucky."

It might have been the understatement of the week.

W 2018 roku Dominika Cibulkova zagra w mniejszej liczbie turniejów, aby ograniczyć ryzyko kontuzji. - Nie jest już tak samo, gdy miałam 20 lat i mogłam trenować jak koń i wszystko było dobrze - powiedziała Słowaczka.


Turniej Miami Open będzie przeniesiony na stadion drużyny NFL. Serena Williams jest zachwycona
W 2016 roku Dominika Cibulkova zdobyła cztery tytuły, a w minionym sezonie osiągnęła tylko jeden finał (New Haven) i walczyła z kontuzjami uda, barku i nadgarstka. Słowaczka nie jest najstarszą tenisistką w cyklu WTA, ale w turniejach gra już od 14 lat.
- Nie jest już tak samo, gdy miałam 20 lat i mogłam trenować jak koń, jak mówimy na Słowacji, i wszystko było dobrze. Teraz muszę zwracać większą uwagę na moje ciało, odpowiednio dostosowywać treningi oraz być dobrze nastawiona fizycznie i mentalnie. Gdy czuję, że brakuje mi energii nie mogę trenować więcej - powiedziała Cibulkova dla portalu sport360.com.

Słowaczka ograniczy liczbę turniejów,aby zminimalizować ryzyko kontuzji. - Tak zrobimy w 2018 roku. Opuszczę Brisbane, a w Australii zagram tylko w Sydney i Melbourne. W całym sezonie zamierzam wystąpić maksymalnie w 18 imprezach. W ostatnim roku było ich 23 lub 24, więc jest to dla mnie ogromna różnica. Jeśli pójdzie dobrze, zacznę grać około 15 turniejów. Zobaczymy więc, co przyniesie 2018 rok - stwierdziła finalistka Australian Open 2014.


W marcu Cibulkova znalazła się na najwyższym w karierze czwartym miejscu w rankingu, a sezon zakończyła na 26. pozycji. Słowaczka w swoim dorobku ma osiem singlowych tytułów w głównym cyklu. Cztery z nich zdobyła w 2016 roku, gdy triumfowała w Katowicach, Eastbourne, Linzu i Mistrzostwach WTA w Singapurze.