Anastasia Potapova, the eighth seed, won her second career title after making it to the final of the 2023 Linz Open.
The 21-year-old beat Croatian Martic in the second round en route to winning his first career title in Istanbul in 2022 and he repeated the feat to claim his second career title after 1 hour 16 minutes.
“It was quite a challenging week,” said Anastasia Potapova, who won her first four matches at Linz in three sets.
“Let’s be honest, it’s an unexpected result, because I didn’t come here in the best condition. I’m in pain, I’m a bit injured.”
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“After the first match, I just said, ‘If I can show this level, maybe I can try to go further and further in the tournament’. I did it and every day I feel better and better. Apparently, in the final I felt fresh and I felt even better than before the first round. Sounds funny but true.”
The world number 43 was outstanding in returning Martic’s second serve after he won 73 per cent of the points from it. He also converted five of the ten break point opportunities he created.
The Linz Open title is the 21-year-old’s first title on hard-court tournaments after the title in Istanbul he won on clay-court. He previously also played two other finals, namely in Tashkent in the 2018 season and Prague in the 2022 season, but ended as runner up.
Thanks to this victory, he is predicted to rise to the highest ranking in his career by breaking 35th in the world rankings for the first time in his career.
After dropping serve in the first game of the match, Potapova was in danger again in her next service game. He had to save four break point opportunities in a game that involved seven deuce chances before finally breaking the deadlock on the scoreboard and avoiding another slump.
But after that, the 21-year-old tennis player was in control of the match. He leveled it at 2-2 after another long game and converted a fifth break.
For the remainder of the match, Potapova did not face another break. He broke Martic for 5-3 and closed the first set with ease. She then dropped just two points on serve in the second set before cementing herself as Linz Open champion.
