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Caroline Garcia completed her French Open preparations in style on Saturday, outplaying Mirjana Lucic-Baroni in the final of the Internationaux de Strasbourg.

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Twenty-four hours on from her marathon victory over Virginie Razzano, Garcia looked fresh as a daisy. The nerves that so often accompany French players competing on home soil were conspicuous by their absence as she raced into a 5-1 lead.

With the set seemingly a lost cause, Lucic-Baroni's game belatedly clicked into gear as she reduced her arrears to 5-4. However, Garcia recomposed herself to close out the set before dominating the second to wrap up a 6-4, 6-1 victory.

"I felt very confident going into the final. The first set I let her back into it. The first set is super important in tennis for momentum. Because you want to get off to a good start. And I got that today, which helped for the rest of the match," Garcia said.

Garcia's victory extends her perfect record against Lucic-Baroni. "I have a good record against Lucic-Baroni and the match today was a lot more difficult than it looked. She joked in the presentation about beating me soon - she's a great player and someone I look up to.

Next stop for Garcia, whose only previous WTA title came two years ago in Bogotá, is Paris for her home major Roland Garros.

"Another title is great - it's progress but every tournament is a new chance to develop," she added. "But today is a great day for me, especially in front of home fans here in France."

Caroline Garcia became the first Mallorca Open champion after defeating Anastasija Sevastova on the very first singles Mallorca Open final in a match that the French controlled from the first until the very last point (6-4 and 6-2) in an hour and 15 minutes battle.
“Thank you very much to my team for supporting me no matter what”, said on court the new champion, who also said a few words in Spanish, having the crowd on their feet.
She laughed when someone reminded her a few days ago that she used to hate grass. “I didn’t like any surface apart from hard, huh?”, joked the French, who will rise up to the 32th place of the WTA rankings, becoming France’s number 1 female player.
The decision of coming to Mallorca instead of rainy England was the right one. She was not afraid of the surface, she took advantage of the heat and end up becoming the champion. “When you see all the news on Twitter and Instagram that the play is suspended over and over again at the tournaments in England, can be frustrating for those who are there”, said.
“You cannot do anything about, you cannot practice, you cannot play. Then you have to go to the gym and wait. During the change to grass, even if you are not in the competition anymore, you just want to practice more and more so here we have the chance. I am very happy of my choice because I had the chance to have loads of practice under the belt”, said a few days ago, not even imaging that she would be the first queen of the Mallorca Open.
It has been month to remember for Garcia. It was mid May when she captured the Strasbourg title, her second single WTA crown, and just two weeks after she made all France smile with a French Open doubles title with her friend Kristina Mladenovic. The amazing run changed color from the orange clay to the green grass of Mallorca, where she became the first champion at the inaugural edition of the Mallorca Open. Garcia couldn’t be happier.
“When I arrived here I wasn’t expecting much because it’s normally very hard to reach the final in your first grass tournament of the year,” Garcia said. “I’ve just taken it match by match and slowly getting more confidence on the grass, even though still there’s things in the game that I want to improve.” And voilà, here in the sunny Mallorca, she got her first grass court title.