A new player of the team Top Five wins her maiden ITF title at the 25K-level event. 19-year-old Vera Lapko of Belarus is a champion in American Landisville.
On a tournament week Vera has beaten top-seed Sabina Sharipova, and in the final, where she dropped her only set at the tournament, she went past former World No.26 Anna Karolina Schmiedlova : 4-6 6-4 7-6 (4).
“I’m very happy that I won this title, no matter how you did it, the main thing is that you won.” Although I’m not particularly happy with the way I won”, Vera said after the match. “When I was 0-3 down on a tiebreak, I was not going to give up and I told myself to fight and focus on winning, I just forgot about the score, and remembered it only after 4-all and really wanted to win this match.”
It is the third professional title in the 2016 Australian Open junior champion’s career, as she previously she won at $15,000 in Sharm el Sheikh (2015) and Astana (2016).
photo: Kirk Neidermyer