Hourigan captures fourth ITF Singles title
WATCH: Paige Hourigan chats to Newstalk ZB news director Matt Brown after winning in Monastir
Paige Hourigan has claimed her fourth ITF singles title and second in three weeks. The 24-year-old Kiwi has beaten Czech 4th seed Monika Kilnarova 6-3 6-2 in the final of the US $15,000 tournament in Monastir in Tunisia.
Hourigan lived up to her billing as the top seed. She won a closely fought opening set, breaking serve three times while being broken once, winning 47 points to 41.
It was a similar story in the second set with Hourigan able to break serve three times and won 35 points to Kilnarova’s 27 to complete the win in 1 hour and 50 minutes.
Hourigan says the key to the match was “Breathing on my serve and fighting for every point. I played the big points very tough all this week and today especially.”
It’s follows a run to the quarter finals for Hourigan at the same venue last week which came a week after she won her third career ITF singles title in Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt.
Hourigan will now take a short break and travel to Atlanta and Georgia Tech spending a few days at university with her team, coach and fitness trainer. She will then head to Ecuador for tournaments there before returning to New Zealand.
READ: Paige wins ITF doubles title
Meanwhile men’s doubles players Marcus Daniell and Artem Sitak are in action on the ATP Tour and ATP Challenger tour this week. Daniell and his Austrian partner Philipp Oswald are fourth seeds at the ATP 250 tournament in Munich and play Georgia’s Nikoloz Basilashvili and Germany’s Andre Begemann in the first round. Artem Sitak is playing the Rome Challenger where he has teamed with Poland’s Jan Zielinski. They meet veteran Italian Paolo Lorenzi and Peru’s Juan Pablo Varilas in the first round.
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