MOSCOW, April 28 (R-Sport) - World No. 2 Maria Sharapova successfully defended her Stuttgart Premier title Sunday, beating Li Na in straight sets in the final.
Top seed Sharapova emerged the winner by a score of 6-4, 6-3 on the Stuttgart clay against second seed Li, who the Russian has now defeated in nine of their 14 meetings.
"She was the second seed and someone who I had lost to the last time we played, and obviously she was fresher than me going into the final, so I knew it would be the toughest match of the tournament," Sharapova said on the WTA website.
"I really tried to do the right things from the beginning to the end and not have a letdown like I did in the other matches - there were some struggles in those, but I kept giving myself chances to go to the next round, and I think I played my best tennis of the week today."
Li said: "You never know what will happen when we play, it's always 50-50, but today she was the better one."
The match puts Sharapova within reach of two career milestones - her next WTA final will be her 50th, and her next Tour title the 30th of her career.
The Stuttgart tournament, known as the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix for commercial reasons, has a prize fund of $800,000.
Updated at 20.05, adding quotes.
