In a tournament that was hit by repeated rain interventions, Karolina Pliskova wasted little time as the Czech strolled to her maiden Qatar Total Open title yesterday.
The second seed was in sublime form and hardly put a foot wrong, outplaying Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki 6-3, 6-4 in the one-sided final.
Though the rain — that wreaked havoc at the Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex the whole week — stayed away, the chilly conditions that prevailed meant that margin of error was minimum.
Her history in Doha and head-to-head against former World No. 1 Wozniacki was both against Plisokva. The 24-year-old had never gone past the second round in Doha and Wozniacki had won all three of her previous matches against Pliskova.
But their last encounter came in 2014 before Pliskova reached last year’s US Open final and became a top-10 player. And Pliskova is a much-improved player right now and Wozniacki found that the hard way.
Having showed tremendous mental strength and fitness, while winning both her quarter-final and semi-final match Friday, Pliskova took charge right from the beginning yesterday.
The World No.3 was up 4-0 in the first set even before the spectators had taken their seats in the centre court. Her service was on fire during her win over third seed Dominika Cibulkova, with 21 aces powering the Czech to victory in the semi-final, where she set a personal record for most aces in a single match.
While it wasn’t on the same level against Wozniacki, she packed a punch with solid forehand and some aggressive game.  
After holding serve for the first time, Wozniacki did manage to break Pliskova and then held again to make it 3-4. However, Pliskova nipped the comeback in the bud by holding her serve and then breaking Wozniacki in the ninth game to pocket the first set.
Wozniacki did change her strategy by running Pliskova from side to side of the court, forcing her to opponent to move, which is regarded as the weakest point in Czech’s game. But Pliskova played well in the big moments to stay ahead of the Dane.
Wozniacki was equal to the task in the second set, but failed to capitalise on a break point. On the other hand, Pliskova grabbed a chance to break in the 10th game and duly wrapped up the match, when Wozniacki buried a lob into the net.
“It’s amazing. It means so much to me winning this tournament because it’s not easy beating these two girls (Cibulkova in semis and Wozniacki in the final). You saw last night and even today given the way they fight,” said Pliskova, as she took the falcon trophy and $132,740 in prize money.
“Also the weather has been taxing with all the rain and rescheduling of matches. I was trying to play my natural game which is aggressive. Also, the serve was really important and for me it was working, so I was happy about that. I also wanted to win here in Doha since I had been losing in the early rounds the last three years. Finally I won some new fans here,” she added.
Pliskova has only lost one match so far in 2017, to Mirjana Lucic-Baroni in the Australian Open quarter-finals, and won the title in Brisbane prior to her run to the last-eight in Melbourne. If she continues her fine form, she can challenge Serena Williams and Angelique Kerber for the No.1 ranking.
However, Pliskova, played down the talk of top spot and said her main target is to win a Grand Slam this year. “I have other goals than being No. 1 right now and it’s to win a Grand Slam. I was in the final (at US Open last year), so now the next step would be to win it,” she said.
“Well, there’s just three (Grand Slams) left now. One of them is on clay. It would be really difficult. Then I’ll just prepare myself the best I can for Wimbledon. Then the US Open, it’s going to be difficult. I’m defending a lot of points there. I would love to win a Slam this year. If not, I still think I have a good chance the next few years,” she added.
For Wozniacki, it was another loss in the final in Doha, the last time was in 2011. “Well, it’s a tournament I’ve never won. Clearly I’m a disappointed right now. It’s a goal of mine to pretty much have won everything,” said the 26-year-old, who will jump four places to No. 14 in rankings.
“But she played really well today. I thought I played well too. I did my best. It’s been a tough week. Yesterday I had two matches late at night. I just tried to recover as well as I could. I feel like I’m playing really good tennis. I can still improve on some things. I’m really feeling positive and confident moving forward,” added Wozniacki, who will be in action in Dubai this week along with Pliskova.
Meanwhile, fourth seeds Abigail Spears of US and Katarina Srebotnik of Slovenia clinched the doubles title, defeating Ukraine’s Olga Savchuk and Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan 6-3, 7-6(7) in the final.