Jo-Wilfried Tsonga rallied from a set and a break down to beat Juan Martin Del Potro 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-4 Sunday in the final of the Erste Bank Open, claiming his second title of the season and seventh overall. The top-seeded Tsonga will officially move past Mardy Fish to No. 7 in the 2011 points list on Monday.

Marin Cilic won his first title of the season and sixth of his career Sunday, beating Janko Tipsarevic 6-3, 3-6, 6-2 in the final of the St. Petersburg Open. The 22nd-ranked Cilic, playing in his fourth final this season, broke in the sixth game of the first set. Tipsarevic, who won his second career title in Moscow last week, broke early in the second set.

Sunday’s final of the WTA Championships in Istanbul provided a glimpse into the future of women’s tennis. Petra Kvitova defeated Victoria Azarenka, 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 to take the biggest non-major of the year and finish the year at No. 2, but this tournament was more about this match — it was a warning shot to the rest of the tour that Kvitova and Azarenka could be ruling the game as quickly as next season.

Caroline Wozniacki remains the No. 1 player in the world, but Kvitova and Azarenka have developed an aggressive game with two different styles. There are plenty of good things to say about the young Dane. There she was again in Istanbul though, losing to a lower-ranked opponent despite her tenaciousness, perfect physical training and solid opponent. The other two women came through to the final.

Petra Kvitova possesses very unique abilities. She’s playing faster than anyone and can be absolutely unbeatable when she’s moving forward with good timing on her footwork. Matches are always in her hand: she can win or she can beat herself. Her fitness and her state of confidence can be the main reasons of her ability to win. When she’s moving with the explosion and frequency needed for her high-risked kind of game and when she remains inside of the court and puts all her body in the ball with the belief she’s going to win, then she can beat anybody. Right now she’s flying above the Masters and as long as she’ll be performing this tennis in full confidence she will remain the favorite on the WTA tour. Not bad for a woman who ended 2010 ranked No. 34 in the world.

Victoria Azarenka is in a totally different style of game and mentality. Yes she’s an offensive player, but she’s also plays the percentages. Contrary to Petra, she’s not a winners or bust kind of player. Her style reminds me of Rafael Nadal‘s. She hits very hard with a lot of energy spent on each shot and uses top spin a lot a lot, pushing her opponents backward. Azarenka also plays very fast because she takes the ball early. Her defensive game is one of the best in the world because she is a real athlete. Unfortunately, sometimes she leaves the unpleasant feeling that she hasn’t left everything on the court, like in her match earlier this tournament against Marion Bartoli in which she had already clinched a spot in the semifinals and barely put up an effort.

Kvitova got the better of Azarenka on Sunday but it won’t be the last matchup between the two women in a big-time final. By next year, this could be the final of a Grand Slam.

A fan sign from Sunday’s WTA Championships final between Petra Kvitova and Victoria Azarenka.

So they’re the ones.

VIENNA (AP)—Jo-Wilfried Tsonga rallied from a set and a break down to beat Juan Martin Del Potro 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-4 Sunday in the final of the Erste Bank Open, claiming his second title of the season and seventh overall.

The top-seeded Tsonga will officially move past Mardy Fish to No. 7 in the 2011 points list on Monday. The top eight will qualify for the season-ending ATP finals in London next month.

“It was a special win,” the ninth-ranked Frenchman said. “I was supposed to win some points here and I did it … For now it’s good, but I will have to play well next week (in Valencia) so I will stay focused.”
 
Tsonga had lost all three previous matches against Del Potro but recovered strongly after falling a break down in the second set to win four straight games.

“It was an amazing match. At the beginning it was really tight,” Tsonga said. “I was a bit down after losing that tiebreaker but I didn’t give away any easy points afterward.”

The second-seeded Del Potro, who is now 9-4 in career finals, is still waiting for his first victory at an indoor event. The Argentine will climb to 11th on the points list, leaving him with a slim chance of reaching the London event.

“I was close, had my chances but did not take them. In the important moments, Jo played much better than me,” Del Potro said. “After that re-break he played more aggressive, served unbelievable. It was really a different match after that moment.”

Both players held serve in the opening set until the tiebreaker. Tsonga was 0-40 down in his opening service game but used four aces to hold. He then missed three chances to break Del Potro’s serve at 4-4.

In the tiebreaker, Tsonga handed Del Potro a first set point by double-faulting at 5-5 and then hit a forehand long in the next rally.

Del Potro used his first break ball to go 2-1 up in the second set but Tsonga won five of the next six games and closed out the set with an ace.

“After that I was more relaxed,” Tsonga said. “I think he had difficulties physically to continue to play aggressively. That made it easier for me to be in the court and be more aggressive.”

Del Potro hit a forehand wide on the only break point in the final set before Tsonga wrapped up victory with an approach shot that wrong-footed the 2009 U.S. Open champion.

It was the 12th ATP final this season that featured the top two seeds, but only the fifth time the No. 1 actually won the title.

A farewell ceremony was held at the end of the final for former No. 1 Thomas Muster of Austria, who played his last match on the ATP circuit on Tuesday. The celebrations included an appearance by 2001 Wimbledon champion Goran Ivanisevic.

“It was special that Thomas and Goran were there,” Tsonga said. “Goran was one of my favorite players when I was young. He did a lot of entertainment on the court too and it was just amazing to be there with him.”

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP)—Marin Cilic won his first title of the season and sixth of his career Sunday, beating Janko Tipsarevic 6-3, 3-6, 6-2 in the final of the St. Petersburg Open.

The 22nd-ranked Cilic, playing in his fourth final this season, broke in the sixth game of the first set. Tipsarevic, who won his second career title in Moscow last week, broke early in the second set.

Tipsarevic saved two break points before the fourth-seeded Croat broke him with a precise backhand down the line in the sixth game of the third set.

On his next serve at 5-2 down, Tipsarevic fell to 15-40, but fired an ace and served a winner to save two match points. But on the subsequent deuce, the 13th-ranked Serb returned wide and Cilic converted his third match point with a backhand winner.

“I played the first two sets a little bit up and down and had some unforced errors,” Cilic said. “But I played my best tennis in the third set. I lost three finals this year and all of them were in three sets. So today, when the match went into the third set, I was really into it to win.”

Tipsarevic took a medical timeout after the first game in the third set to have the back of his right leg massaged and receive treatment for a blister on the little toe of his right foot.

Cilic said he used the time to gather his thoughts.

“As soon as he (Tipsarevic) came back on the court to serve, I was ready to push him, push him physically and that was the turning point of the match,” he said.

Tipsarevic, who won his first career title in Kuala Lumpur on Sept. 26, said he was tired by the end of the match.

“Marin deserved to win—he was a better player today,” Tipsarevic said. “I really gave everything today, but in the third set I felt it wasn’t about tennis it was about me completely out of fuel on court. I’ve played a lot of matches in the last two weeks.”

Cilic is the second Croat to win the tournament after Mario Ancic in 2006.

Mornin'. Like many others in the northeastern U.S., I'm gazing out this morning at meadows and mountain ridges covered in eight inches of. . . snow.  The nor'easter went through yesterday as predicted. It was a bracing, exciting experience – the way Big Weather always is, until you realize you actually might freeze (drown, get blown off a cliff, have a massive oak fall on your head, etc. . . .). This is still October, but I was able to take cowboy Luke snowspeeding behind the ATV already.

But I know that's not what you're interested in right now. Soon Petra Kvitova and Victoria Azarenka will square off for the WTA Championships title – the winning of which is always a good omen. Just check how the first-time winners of the championships (which is what either young lady playing today will be) did the year after they triumphed.

I'm liking Kvitova's chances. While I think Azarenka could hit her way to a Grand Slam title (or two, or three), her game really is one-dimensional, and a really first-rate player can really get grooved against her. Is there a player out here whose game cries out for greater. . .variety? But then, those lapses of Kvitova's are troubling. You take your foot off the neck of a really good player after having planted it there and you're really asking for trouble. That begs the question; are the main contenders this week in Istanbul really blue-chip players, or just very good ones exploiting the atypial WTA vacuum at the top?

Whatever happens today, this WTA Championships leaves me feeling Istanbullish. It has been an enormous success and a great advertisement for women's tennis – at least as far as fan interest and ambiance goes. The Turkish fans are, from what I saw in the semis yesterday, an astute, agreeable audience. I look forward to reading Doug Robson's thoughts on all this later on the home page. Watching the matches, you would have thought this was one of the small handful of really well-established WTA events (a la Brisbane, Indian Wells, Miami, Rome, etc.)

Anyway, enjoy the final. I'll be back tomorrow.

– Pete

Vera Zvonareva's talent for failing upward deserted her in the semifinals of the WTA Championships, where she had no business being in the first place after having lost two of three singles matches in the round-robin portion of the WTA's marquee event. She was beaten, 6-2, 6-3, by Victoria Azarenka, who will play Petra Kvitova for the title tomorrow.

The great battle here was one of consistency—or lack thereof. Azarenka did a much better job of playing well when she needed to, while Zvonareva reverted to her pre-2010 habits of sabotaging herself—sometimes exactly when she most needed to lift her game.

Prime example: At the brink of elimination in the final game of the match, Zvonareva secured double-break point by virtue of an impressive cross-court forehand winner and deft drop shot. She wasted her first chance with an acceptable backhand error, but followed on with a horrendous backhand service-return error. From deuce, Azarenka won the next two points. For the match, Azarenka saved five of seven break points while breaking Zvonareva five times in two sets.

Zvonareva's inconsistency wasn't entirely a mental issue. Her serve was all over the place, and one of the signature sounds of the match—even Azarenka's banshee shrieks couldn't drown it out—was the "thud" of Zvonareva's racket hitting the court on her follow-through. It wouldn't have been so bad if the ferocious swipe produced a monster serve; but the sound merely underscored the degree to which Zvonareva was out of balance and perhaps going for more than she was able to deliver. Give her points for realizing that she needed to put Azarenka back on her heels; take points away from her for poor execution.

Azarenka was in control throughout the match; she was gifted an early break via a Zvonareva double fault, and she subsequently carved out two more breaks. When a player has as much trouble holding as Zvonareva did, the onus on an opponent to hold is less severe. And, the troubled server can swing from the heels due to her desperate situation. Hence, Azarenka dropped serve twice but still won the first set easily.

The beginning of the second set was competitive. Zvonareva pushed the envelope a bit, as if she would outhit one of the biggest hitters in the WTA. But in the latter part of this year Azarenka has dialed her aggression back a bit, and she made Zvonareva pay for her brave if somewhat reckless strategy. Given that even the more modulated Azarenka tends to be a one-speed player (watching her can be as monotonous as staring at a pneumatic press punching out bottlecaps, although her shriek does serve to keep your eyelids open), Zvonareva might have been better served calling upon her versatility and guile—although, admittedly, neither would have done much good without the requisite consistency. 

But that was asking too much of this accidental semifinalist. Zvonareva looked like a tired player with a tattered, wrinkled game by the end. The recently expanded WTA offseason will give her plenty of opportunity to iron out the flaws. Meanwhile, Azarenka and Kvitova will contest the kind of final that seems most appropriate: a match between two hungry, relatively young players.

Note to Azarenka and Kvitova: Serena Williams, Justine Henin and Amelie Mauresmo all went on to win Grand Slam events the year after they first won the WTA Championships.

—Pete Bodo

AFP reports that Caroline Wozniacki is flying to Shanghai to watch her boyfriend, Rory McIlroy, try and win the $2 million winner’s check at golf’s Lake Malaren Shanghai Masters. “Caroline is arriving to cheer Rory on. We have readied the tennis center at our golf resort because we’ve been told she likes to practice every day,” tournament owner Janson Shi said.