Tennis: Pia Haddad Maya wins the biggest singles title of her career

Beatriz Haddad Maya from São Paulo, on Sunday (29), in the Chinese city of Zhuhai, won the biggest singles title in her career. No. 19 classification From the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), the Brazilian was the champion of the WTA Elite Cup, a tournament that brings together the best tennis players outside the top eight in the world.

The Brazilian needed two hours and 50 minutes of play to beat the Chinese Chenwen Zheng, eighteenth in the world, in two sets to zero, decided in a tie-break, with splits of 7/6 (13-11) and 7/6 (7-4). The cup won by Pia in Zhuhai is Pia’s third in singles. In June last year, the Sao Paulo native was champion of the Nottinhgam and Birmingham tournaments in the United Kingdom.

A title in China will move Pia closer to the top 10 in the rankings classification all over the world. In the next update to the list, the Brazilian will receive an additional 700 points and will appear in eleventh place. The best result of his career was a 10th place finish, which he achieved in June, after reaching the semi-finals of Roland Garros, in France, one of the four major tournaments on the circuit, known as the Grand Slam.

Pia was also the Elite Cup doubles champion. In the final, which was held after a singles decision, she and Russian Veronika Kudermetova defeated Japanese Mio Kato and Indonesian Aldila Sutjadi two sets to zero, with a score of 6/3 and 6/3.

Doubles competition does not add points in classification From the WTA, where the Brazilian appears at number twenty-fourth. Partner Kudermetova is ranked 30th, while competitors Sutjiadi and Kato are ranked 26th and 27th, respectively.

Despite this, the title guarantees the partnership a bonus of US$55,000 (about R$274,000), to be divided between the athletes.

For the singles title, Pia received another $605,000 (R$3.01 million). Thus, in total, the São Paulo native bid farewell to China with a total prize pool of 632.5 thousand US dollars (3.15 million Brazilian reals).