Olga Danilovic vs Arantxa Rus: Barcelona Final Analysis (ITF W100)

Danilovic won her first hardcourt title dropping just 2 games in the final and without losing a set all week

Olga Danilovic’s precocious achievements make it easy to forget that she is still 23 years old. The left-handed Serbian won her first professional title at 15 and she claimed her sole WTA Tour title to date as a 17-year-old lucky-loser ranked #194, in Moscow during the summer of 2018. Later that year, Danilovic enjoyed a brief stint inside the Top-100 but a sequence of bad results followed by persistent injuries and health concerns stalled her progress for quite some time.

Positive signs that Danilovic may finally fulfill her talent were given last year when she ended a 4-year drought with titles at ITF W100 Madrid and WTA 125 Bastad. Another highlight of 2023 was a run from qualies to the third round at Roland Garros.

Danilovic must love Paris as she did even better this year, reaching the fourth round after thrilling and emotional wins over Danielle Collins and Donna Vekic that triggered a torrent of on-court laughter, relief, joy, cry and gratitude.

📺 source: Roland Garros

"I practise for these kind of moments. When they come, I really want to take the best out of them and to enjoy being here. And to enjoy to suffer as well. In tennis, at the end, sometimes you really need to suffer, like I did today."

— Olga Danilovic, on-court interview after her Roland Garros win over Vekic

If a title was the only thing missing to make 2024 Danilovic’s best season yet, it arrived at W100 Cornellà de Llobregat, in the outskirts of Barcelona, and brought with it a number of career milestones:

• a rise to #86, new career-high ranking;

• 33 wins on the season, surpassing her previous best of 32 victories, set in 2018;

• a first title on hardcourts (previous 8 titles and 12 finals were all on clay).

Without losing a set all week, Danilovic conceded just 2 games in the all-lefty Cornellà de Llobregat final. A short and one-sided match that prevented Rus from increasing her ITF Tour record of 33 titles.

source: TEC Carles Ferrer Salat

In a final featuring relatively few winners (6 for Danilovic, 5 for Rus), Danilovic showed a vastly superior ability to induce forced errors during rallies, as evidenced by her 16-3 advantage in this metric.