WTA250 Cluj-Napoca: Anastasia Potapova vs Lucia Bronzetti final analysis
Potapova confirmed her first-ever top seed status on Tour by serving better throughout the Transylvania Open final and elevating her baseline game during the last 2 sets
In Cluj-Napoca, Anastasia Potapova (WTA #33) made the most of being the no.1 seed at a WTA event for the first time in her career and clinched her third Tour title.
If playing as the top favourite boosted Potapova’s odds, the matchup for the championship match probably didn’t hurt either. The injury retirement of 5th-seed Katerina Siniakova (WTA #53) early in her semi-final against unseeded Lucia Bronzetti (WTA #66) meant Potapova would contest the title decider with a player she had beaten at least once in each of the last 3 seasons and held a 4-0 record, instead of facing Siniakova to whom Potapova had lost both times they played.
Potapova confirmed her favourite status in the final and made it 5 wins out of 5 against Bronzetti, finding her best tennis right after losing the first set to post a 4-6, 6-1, 6-2 triumph. Coincidentally, the only other time Bronzetti won the first set against Potapova was 2 years ago at WTA 250 Linz. On that occasion, they met in the first round and Potapova ended up conquering her second Tour title.
This week, Bronzetti’s run to the Cluj-Napoca final featured a headline-grabbing first round win over Simona Halep. Upon the conclusion of that match, Halep called time on her decorated career, justifying the decision with her inability to recover from a limiting knee injury.
Halep’s career achievements include:
64 weeks as #1
2 Major titles: 2018 Roland Garros and 2019 Wimbledon
5 Major finals played
24 singles titles
580 wins / 242 defeats
The Transylvania Open final was decided by 3 key factors:
Unreturned serves
Backhand performances
Potapova’s unmatched level raise after losing first set
1. Unreturned serves
There was a huge difference between what each finalist extracted off the serve.
Potapova hit 7 aces and 15 other deliveries that forced return errors, for a total of 22 winning serves. Bronzetti could only counter with 8 winning serves (1 ace + 7 forced return errors).
Potapova’s unreturned serves
7 aces
15 return forced errors
4 return unforced errors
Bronzetti’s unreturned serves
1 ace
7 return forced errors
5 return unforced errors
By adding unforced errors on returns to the above mentioned winning serve numbers, Potapova’s total of points won off serves that were not returned into court reaches 26, twice more than Bronzetti’s total of 13, as highlighted by the red box below (1-shot rallies = unreturned serves).
The pratical consequence of this was that, after struggling to hold serve early on, Potapova was not broken in the last 2 sets (8 games). During that period, the 23-year old Russian only faced a break point, right at the start of the second set, while breaking Bronzetti twice per set.
2. Backhand performances
Potapova also outproduced Bronzetti from the backhand wing by a 2:1 ratio.