Dutchwoman Suzan Lamens won the first WTA 125 level title of her career on Sunday at the Oeiras Ladies Open with a 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 comeback win over Denmark's Clara Tasuon. The 24-year-old had three match points in the second set, and later trailed 4-1 in the final set.
The 2-hour, 53-minute triumph was full of twists and turns. Lamens looked on course to ease to victory when she built a 6-4, 5-0 lead -- only to see Tauson win a staggering seven consecutive games to force a decider. All of Lamens' match points came in a five-deuce ninth game in which she initially trailed 0-40, and was also broken in a similar game at 5-5.
Tauson's momentum continued well into the decider, as her run of games won extended to 11 of the last 12 to earn a double-break advantage. A pair of double faults off the Dane's racquet in a subsequent service game helped spark Lamens' belief that she could turn the match around, she said.
“I'm still trying to believe what happened," Lamens said afterwards. "It was a crazy match ... It was a big rollercoaster. I'm very happy, but also a bit tired."
"At the beginning of the third set, I was still thinking about that a lot," she said of the lead she lost. "At 1-4, I was just telling myself to keep fighting. She was 5-0 down, so from 4-1, I could maybe also come back."
The victory for the 24-year-old Lamens, who hails from Rotterdam, is the latest in an in-form spring. In March, she won her first ITF World Tennis Tour title above W25 level at the W60 in Trnava, Slovakia, and her Portuguese breakthrough saw her beat a pair of seeds, as well as a former Top 10 player.
Lamens beat No.9 seed Emiliana Arango of Colombia in the first round, and stopped the run of former World No.10 Kristina Mladenovic in emphatic fashion in the semifinals after dropping the first set. Lamens won the last 12 games of her 4-6, 6-0, 6-0 victory over the Frenchwoman, having not dropped a set in the tournament prior to that point.
Ranked No.163 coming into the event, Lamens will be at a new career-high of No.134 on Monday.
"My main goal is to get into the Top 100, which is getting closer and closer now," Lamens added. "My goal for this year was to win a bigger title ... so it's really nice."
Fourth seeded Tauson dropped 15 games in her first three matches against Carole Monnet, Nuria Parrizas Diaz and Potrugal's own Matilde Jorge before getting a walkover from No.1-seeded American Bernarda Pera in the semifinals. The American withdrew due to a neck injury.
Jorge, though, came away with the doubles title, as she and her sister Francisca teamed to topple second-seeded Mladenovic and Great Britain's Harriet Dart in the final, 6-0, 6-4.
The sisters didn't lose a set in their title run, which also included a 6-0, 6-3 win over fourth-seeded Brits Alicia Barnett and Freya Christie in the first round and a 6-3, 6-3 win over No. 1-seeded Czechs Miriam Kolodziejova and Anna Siskova in the quarterfinals.
