Agnieszka Radwanska beats Petra Kvitova to win WTA Finals

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  • Agnieszka Radwanska holds the Billie Jean King Trophy after defeating Petra Kvitova.

    It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish – those were the words Agnieszka Radwanska used to kick off her press conference, with a broad smile on her face and the Billie Jean King trophy by her side, revelling in the fact that she just won the WTA Finals.

    A teary-eyed Radwanska sprinted to the net upon beating Petra Kvitova 6-2, 4-6, 6-3 and gave an emotional on-court speech that reflected the difficult times she had to go through this season to reach this stage and win the biggest title of her career.

    “It’s the biggest day of my life,” said the 26-year-old.

    Six months ago, Radwanska was also in tears but they were of despair as she was coming off a first round loss to Annika Beck at the French Open.

    Her short partnership with Martina Navratilova as a part-time coach had ended just three months into the season and Radwanska was a miserable 15-13 win-loss through the first half of the year.

    But the tireless Pole started turning things around in the grass court season – her favourite time of the year – and she finishes 2015 ranked No5 in the world and with three titles captured in the last six weeks – in Tokyo, Tianjin, Singapore.

    “Unbelievable. I didn't really expect this at all, especially the beginning of the year it was not great,” said Radwanska. “I think the good sentence is to do it here: Doesn't matter how you start, matters how you end.

    “I think this is it. Definitely I think just no words to say what I was feeling on the court. Definitely I didn't expect it at all.”

    Radwanska is the first player to have one win and two losses in the round robin stage and go on to grab the WTA Finals title. She hadn’t beaten a top-five player this season heading into Singapore but has now defeated three in the last four days.

    “I lost my first two matches, but it's not like I was playing bad. It was still good matches. I just didn't use the chances,” she explained.

    She had a tremendous start against Kvitova yesterday, breaking twice for a 5-1 lead and taking the opening set in 33 minutes, without facing any break points.

    Radwanska went up 2-0 in the second but Kvitova wrestled her way back into it to force a third. The Czech former champion opened up a 2-0 gap in the decider, but Radwanska struck back, moving incredibly well and coming with some outrageous, yet very characteristic, shots. She sealed the deal on a netted forehand from Kvitova and ended the match with just a measly five unforced errors.

    Only one player – 1982 champion Sylvia Hanika of Germany – in the history of the WTA Finals has won the title and finished their career without winning at least one grand slam. The last slam-less Finals champion prior to this year was Amelie Mauresmo, who took the title in 2005 then went on to win two majors the following season.

    Radwanska, whose best slam result is a runner-up showing at Wimbledon in 2012, is hoping she can take confidence from her Singapore triumph into her 2016 season.

    “Well, for sure gives me more confidence, especially that in a grand slam you also have to beat couple of top players in a row,” she says. “I think here it's even harder because just eight of us and you don't have any first rounds to used to the courts. But definitely a good start. I'll definitely try to do that next year.”

    Tomasz Wiktorowski, Radwanska’s coach, agrees.

    “Winning this kind of tournament is always extra confidence,” he told Sport360.

    “We heard a lot of tough words in the first half of the season. The first half of the season was actually really tough for all of us, especially for Aga. So I’m also really proud of her, how she passed through these tough moments, these tough months.

    “I want to say thank you to Martina for the time we spent together. I just think it was bad timing. But we learned a lot from her. She’s an extremely intelligent person and a great friend, a really big friend of us and I want to say thank you to her.”

    Kvitova, whose season is not over yet as she still has the Fed Cup final against Russia in Prague on November 14-15, paid tribute to her opponent.

    “I think she moved really well. It was really difficult to end the shot. I went for the volleys many times and I just didn't play them so well, so it was a little bit difficult,” said Kvitova, who finished the match with 53 unforced errors. 

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