Seeds number two, four and five, one of them defending champion Jarmila Gajdosova, were all the victims of Mona Barthel during her run to her first career final at the Moorilla Hobart International. But the amazing German didn’t leave the city without completing the last touch and finished the tournament by upsetting top seed Yanina Wickmayer with an impressive 6-1 6-2 score.
Being a qualifier, Barthel compiled eight match wins on her title quest. The defeated names include: Valeria Savinykh, Olga Govortsova, Nina Bratchikova, Romina Oprandi, Anabel Medina Garrigues, Jarmila Gajdosova, Angelique Kerber, and finally Yanina Wickmayer. The last qualifier to win a WTA title before Barthel was Tamira Paszek at Quebec City in September 2010.
The world No.64 Barthel, who came to Hobart with only six main draw victories in her life, is projected to make a Top 50 debut.
Prior to Hobart, Barthel played Auckland where she defeated former world No.4 Jelena Dokic in the first round and lost to Sabine Lisicki 7-6(3) 3-6 6-3 afterwards. The upcoming Australian Open will be her first main draw appearance at the event and her opening opponent will be Anne Keothavong.
An amazing week for Mona Barthel who really looks the real deal! I hope she still has something left in the tank for the Australian Open… realistically I could see her making the third round.
Great victory. Also, Yanina wasn´t amused when they were giving out trophies 😛
Yes Mona has got some serious game and I am happy to see her finally make the move into the world’s elite.
She played one of my students in Stuttgart qualifying 2 years ago. At the time I was thinking why the hell is this girl not in the Top100 and many people were saying that she had some serious problems with nerves and not performing up to her abilities but it appears that she got that under control now!
Haha, the germans are coming, guys! 😀
I did not get to see any matches from Hobart so I have no idea how good Mona Barthel is.
I was always a big fan of Steffi so I like to see the Germans doing well.