MOSCOW, October 20 (R-Sport) – Simona Halep continued her breakout 2013 tennis season by taking her fifth title of the year at the Kremlin Cup in Moscow on Sunday with a straight-sets defeat of Samantha Stosur in the final.
The diminutive Romanian, ranked 18th in the world, edged ex-US Open champion Stosur in the first set and dominated the second on her way to a 7-6(1), 6-2 victory.
"It's been an incredible year for me. I'm really happy and just enjoying the tennis," Halep said.
Halep now heads to the season-ending Tournament of Champions in Sofia later this month on a hot streak of form and looks set to beat her career-high ranking of No. 17 when the new listings are published Monday.
"My mind is there already," she said of Sofia. "I have to prepare for the tournament. It's special and I want also to enjoy it."
Stosur, meanwhile, saw her nine-match winning streak end as she lost in the Kremlin Cup final for a second straight year, following her defeat to Caroline Wozniacki in 2012.
"[Halep] really got on top of me in that tiebreak and from then it was a real uphill battle," Stosur said. "I thought she played really solid the whole way through and in general it was really tough today."
Halep started by breaking Stosur in the Australian's second service game of the match, but Stosur broke back shortly after. From then on, however, Halep dominated the first set, her accurate shot placement ensuring every service game was a battle for Stosur, who saved more seven break points to reach the tiebreak.
Stosur looked capable of a revival when she broke Halep's serve in the first game of the second set, but from then on the Romanian took control once again, winning the following four games before closing out the match on Stosur's serve as the Australian's accuracy evaporated.
Later Sunday, French top seed Richard Gasquet takes on Kazakh qualifier Mikhail Kukushkin for the men's title.
Stosur will team up with Russia's Svetlana Kuznetsova to compete for the women's doubles title against Russian player Alla Kudryavtseva and Australia's Anastasia Rodionova.
On Saturday, the men's doubles title went to Uzbekistan's Denis Istomin and Russia's Mikhail Elgin with a 6-2, 1-6, 14-12 victory over British brothers Ken and Neal Skupski in the final.
The Kremlin Cup is an ATP 250 and WTA Premier tournament played on hard courts at Moscow's Olimpiisky Sports Complex and has a prize fund for $795,000 for the women's competitions.
