Buenos Aires | Pigossi lands her first WTA singles title

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Brazil’s Laura Pigossi won her first title in Buenos Aires when she landed the WTA 125 IEB+ Argentina Open trophy with a 6-3 6-2 win over local favourite Maria Lourdes Carle in Sunday’s final.

The World No 137, who was seeded 5, needed an hour and 32 minutes to topple 5th-seeded Carle, ranked 175 on the Argentine’s home court.

Pigossi is now leads 3-0 over Carle in their head-to-head, with all three of the Brazilian’s victories coming in straight sets.

The 29-year-old was a Hologic WTA Tour singles finalist at 2022 Bogota, and she won an Olympic bronze medal in women’s doubles alongside Luisa Stefani at Tokyo 2021.

Pigossi, who reached a career-high ranking of 100 in August of 2022, was pushed to 3 sets in 3 of her 4 matches en route to this week’s final.

In Saturday’s semi-final, she was pulled into a third-set tiebreak before edging past No 6 seed Renata Zarazua of Mexico.

In Sunday’s championship match, the first 4 games went against serve before Pigossi took control by firing a forehand winner down the line to break for a 5-3 lead before Carle sent a forehand wide on the Brazilian’s first set point to concede the opening set.

In the second, Pigossi fended off 5 break points in a gruelling hold for 3-1, and she moved to victory from there, converting her first championship point with a winning pass.

Crucially, Pigossi won 77% of her 2nd-serve points in the final, while Carle won only 25% of points behind her own second delivery, while the Brazilian also converted 6 of her 9 break points in the match.

Maria Lourdes & Despina Papamichail won the doubles title after defeating Maria Paulina Perez Garcia & Sofia Sewing in the match breaker

Roberto Castro/IEB+ Argentina Open/WTAtennis.com

After losing in the singles final, Carle came back on court and won a delayed doubles semi-final alongside Despina Papamichail, beating No 1 seeds Diane Parry & Valeriya Strakhova, 6-2 6-2.

Shortly after, Carle & Papamichail won the doubles final, which was the Argentine’s third match of the day.

Carle & Papamichail claimed the IEB+ Argentina Open doubles title with a 6-3 4-6 [11-9] win over Maria Paulina Perez Garcia & Sofia Sewing.

The pair had previously been the doubles runners-up at Buenos Aires in 2021.

This is Carle’s first WTA 125 doubles title, and Papamichail’s second, the Greek having won WTA 125 Barranquilla earlier this year alongside her fellow countrywoman Valentini Grammatikopoulou.