World No.49 Jennifer Brady did not drop a set all week at the inaugural edition of the Top Seed Open presented by Bluegrass Orthopaedics and ceded a total of only 24 games to win her first WTA title. In Sunday’s final, the American overcame a shaky serve, typically one of her strongest assets, to defeat Swiss left-hander Jil Teichmann 6-3 6-4.
The unseeded Brady never dropped serve in the final, even though her first serve percentage was only 44%, and only 33% in the first set. At one point in the match she exclaimed: “I’ve never missed this many first serves! I don’t get it!”
The final lasted one hour and 42 minutes and it was Brady’s longest match this week, as all the previous rounds she finished in up to 70 minutes.
To open the first WTA tournament on US soil since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Brady hit ten aces and won all seven service game to beat Heather Watson in the first round. In the second round, she delivered another accomplished service display against Magda Linette, dropping serve just once and striking a further seven aces, then took out Marie Bouzkova in the quarterfinals and blitzed past Coco Gauff in Saturday’s semis, striking eight aces.
The 25-year-old Brady has been off to a firing start in 2020, opening the season with a quarterfinal run at Brisbane, where she defeated former world No.1 Maria Sharapova and the reigning No.1 Ashleigh Barty. She also notched three consecutive Top 20 wins to reach the semifinals at Dubai in February.
