Italian underdog Camila Giorgi upset fourth seed Karolina Pliskova 6-3, 7-5 yesterday to win the biggest title of her career with victory at the National Bank Open WTA hardcourt event in Montreal.
The world number 71 completed a 2021 hat-trick of victories over the sixth-ranked, Czech who has now lost three finals this season. Wimbledon finalist and Rome runner-up Pliskova had no answer for the inspired shotmaking of Giorgi, who also defeated Pliskova in the first round at Eastbourne and in the third round at the Tokyo Olympics.
The Czech had won 12 of her past 14 matches coming into the final, which lasted almost one and three-quarter hours. Giorgi ended with seven aces and broke her opponent four times.
The first Italian winner of the prestigious US Open tuneup now owns three career titles after winning in Linz in 2018 and in the Netherlands three years earlier.
Giorgi is expected to rise into the top 35 in the world rankings for the first time since May, 2019, as a result of her victory.
The past two months have seen Giorgi turn her head-to-head against the Czech around in emphatic fashion. She stunned Pliskova 2-6, 6-2, 6-2 in the first round of Eastbourne in June, and backed that up with a 6-4, 6-2 dismissal in the third round of the Tokyo Olympic Games. Here, she meted out Pliskova’s third final defeat of 2021, following losses in Rome to Iga Swiatek and at Wimbledon to Ashleigh Barty.
World No 71 Giorgi upset four seeded players - No 9 Elise Mertens, No 7 Petra Kvitova and No 15 Coco Gauff as well as Pliskova en route to becoming the lowest-ranked champion in Canada since No 80-ranked Serena Williams took the title in 2011. Giorgi dropped just one set across the week, to Jessica Pegula in the semi-finals.
In both of Pliskova’s previous finals this year, she was undone by slow starts. But the opening stages of the Montreal title match were solid and tightly contested through the first six games. Both players were striking the ball cleanly, but winning points through a combination of power and margin rather than low-percentage placement.
Both would extricate themselves from the first break-point danger they faced, with Giorgi pulling off a stellar get to do so, and at 3-3 she struck. Using deep forehand returns at Pliskova’s feet to superb effect, she broke the former World No 1’s serve after a mighty five-deuce tussle. From there, Giorgi rolled to the end of the set, with Pliskova dropping serve in somewhat tame fashion with a double fault and wide forehand in its final game.
Another pair of double faults and netted groundstrokes from Pliskova gifted Giorgi a 3-1 lead in the second set - but an uncharacteristic tossed racquet from the former World No 26 was a sign that there could be more plot twists to come. Sure enough, consecutive double faults from Giorgi in the next game handed the break straight back.
However, over the next few games Giorgi managed to quickly right the ship while Pliskova failed to press home the potential momentum shift. Giorgi delivered one of the most emphatic holds of the day to reach 5-4, with two service winners followed by two aces. Three games later, serving to stay in the match for the second time, Pliskova folded with a sixth double fault and two forehand errors to seal Giorgi’s second championship point.
Giorgi finished with more aces (seven to four), more winners (16 to 13) and fewer unforced errors (27 to 34) than Pliskova, and faced only two break points over the course of the match. She will move back inside the Top 35 for the first time since May 2019 next week. Next up for the Italian is a repeat of her Montreal semi-final in the first round of Cincinnati against Pegula.