Agnieszka Radwanska from Poland experienced a 154-minute battle to disarm German world No. 11 Andrea Petkovic 7-5, 0-6, 6-4 to seal the title of China Open here on Sunday.
At the awarding ceremony, Radwanska and Petkovic performed a short Chinese dance as was promised after yesterday's semis. Petkovic, who was plagued by injury all through the match, burst into tears and buried her face into the towel after the dance.
Radwanska entered the match with a break and established a 4-1 lead after breaking her opponent for a second time in the first set.
However, Petkovic refused to surrender, breaking back to pull the score to 3-4. Petkovic got hurt in muscle in the eighth game, and she called a medical timeout. She then came back to the court with another break to level the score to 4-4. After the score got to 5-5, Radwanska knocked down two straight games to wrap up the first set 7-5.
Breaking became the theme of the third set. Radwanska succeed three times, while Petkovic broke twice. Petkovic made a fatal forehand error to lose the ninth set to her rival, and Radwanska held serve to harvest the victory 6-4.
