Karin Knapp lifts Tashkent Open title

Italian third seed Karin Knapp played brilliant tennis to down Serbian top seed Bojana Jovanovski 6-2, 7-6(4) and lift the women's singles title at the 16th edition of the Tashkent Open being played at the Olympic School Tennis Complex here Saturday.

World No.71 Karin dethroned World No.36 Bojana in just an hour and 41 minutes to take home a cheque of $43,000 apart from 280 WTA points. Meanwhile, Bojana had to be content with $21,400 and 180 WTA points.

Karin, 27, who appeared in her second career final and first since she lost to Justine Henin at Antwerp six year ago, avenged her loss to the 22-year-old Bojana, whom she had lost to in Madrid in their lone previous meeting.

"I can't say how happy I am. I have had five surgeries, so many months of layoffs in the last six years but I knew it is possible for me to win a WTA event. I was playing good the entire week and thought I will do well," said Karin.

"I felt a little stressed after the scores were 4-4 after I led 4-2 initially but decided to be mentally tough. I feel happy to have won here and will come back to defend my title."

Aleksandra Krunic of Serbia and Katerina Siniakova of Czech Republic lifted the women's doubles title beating Russian combine of Margarita Gasparyan and Alexandra Panova 6-2, 6-1. The winners earned $12,300 for their efforts while the runners-up received $6,400.

Final results:

Singles: 3-Karin Knapp (ITA) bt 1-Bojana Jovanovski (SRB) 6-2, 7-6(4)

Doubles: Aleksandra Krunic (SRB)/Katerina Siniakova (CZE) bt Margarita Gasparyan (RUS)/Alexandra Panova (RUS) 6-2, 6-1.