(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Svetlana Kuznetsova dug deep into her reserves to overcome Agnieszka Radwanska 7-5, 1-6, 7-5 in their WTA Finals round robin opener yesterday, the late-arriving Russian upsetting the defending champion in a thrilling encounter.
Kuznetsova only qualified for the elite eight-woman tournament on Saturday after winning the Kremlin Cup but she staved off exhaustion and a match point in the deciding set to emerge victorious over the world number three.
'At some point I was ready to just let it go and lie on the court and let them take me out of here but I decided to hang in there,” the two-time grand slam champion said.
The world number nine held a 12-4 record against Radwanska prior to the contest but after travelling from China to Russia to Singapore in consecutive weeks, few gave her a chance of recording an upset victory yesterday.
Both players looked comfortable on serve in the opening exchanges before Radwanska pounced in the fourth game, finding the corners with her backhand against a leaden-footed Kuznetsova to forge 3-1 ahead with the first break of the match.
The Russian was struggling to gauge the pace of the slow hardcourt at the Singapore Indoor Stadium, her shots finding the net with alarming regularity, but she survived another threat in her next service game to stay just one break down.
The 31-year-old was growing into the contest, moving better and offering more resistance, and her improved play was rewarded in the seventh game when she capitalised on some sloppy play by the Pole to break serve before tying the set up at 4-4.
Kuznetsova continued to press and probe the world number three";s notoriously resilient defence, breaking once more thanks to a backhand winner and crosscourt pass before sealing the set when Radwanska plonked a return into the net after 50 minutes.
Radwanska adopted a more aggressive approach to start the second set and the strategy paid off as she began to dictate a majority of the points, racing to a 5-1 lead on three breaks of serve and sending the match into a decider with a gutsy hold.
The Pole carried her momentum into the third set, continuing to move the Russian around with her sliced backhand to edge ahead with an early break but Kuznetsova, who gave herself an impromptu haircut at the changeover, broke back to make it 2-2.
By this stage, there was nothing between the pair with Radwanska and her weary-looking opponent unable to hold serve as the tension mounted but it was Kuznetsova who got the decisive break to seal victory after two hours and 48 minutes on her third match point.
Spectators at Singapore";s Indoor Stadium looked on in stunned disbelief when the Russian gave herself an impromptu haircut early in the deciding third set, chopping off the end of her ponytail and throwing the loose strands onto her seat.
At the next change of ends, Kuznetsova then began to cry, sobbing into her towel before she regained her composure, wiped the tears from her cheeks and went back on the court to finish a contest which lasted almost three hours.
'At some point I was just ready to lie on the court and let them take me out of here. But I kept at it,” Kuznetsova said in a courtside interview.
A two-time grand slam winner, Kuznetsova was appearing in the WTA Finals, restricted to the world";s top eight players, for the first time since 2009 after she only just snuck into the elite final.
The 31-year-old needed to win the Kremlin Cup in Moscow on Saturday to leapfrog Britain";s Johanna Konta for the last spot in the field then had to fly straight to Singapore just to be ready to play her opening match.
Radwanska was left to rue her failure to take the chances. The Polish world number three led 4-1 in the first set and held a match point in the 10th game of the decider but was unable to capitalise both times.
'Well, of course it";s very disappointing, especially that I had chances and just let them slip away,” the 27-year-old told reporters.
'To turn up like this, against players like Sveta (Kuznetsova), if you don";t take your chances, you";re not going to be a winner.”
Radwanska, however, knows all is far from lost after defeat in her White Group opener. Last year, the Pole advanced to the semi-finals with a 1-2 record and still went on to claim the biggest win of her career, beating Petra Kvitova in the final.
'I still have a chance, especially as I was two losses down last year,” she added. 'But, of course, at the moment you";re always thinking about the match that you just lost, so I think I need to cool down first and then I will think about what I have to do to go to the semi-finals.”
Despite the defeat, Radwanska was satisfied with her overall performance and believed the result could have been different had a couple of key moments gone her way.
'Overall, it was a good, tough match. I think a lot of things were happening,” she added.
'I could play a little bit better. Couple of mistakes in the bad moments and not the right decisions I guess, and, yeah, that cost me a lot.”
French Open champion Garbine Muguruza and first-time finalist Karolina Pliskova are the other two players in Radwanska";s pool at the elite eight-woman event.
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