No.3 seed Beatriz Haddad Maia battled back from a set and a break down to defeat top seed Daria Kasatkina 1-6, 6-4, 6-1 in the final of the Hana Bank Korea Open on Sunday. The victory netted the Brazilian her first Hologic WTA Tour title of the season and fourth overall. 

Seoul: Scores | Order of Play | Draw

"I'm happy with my job," Haddad Maia said after her victory. "I think the beginning of the match I was missing a lot, and Daria was playing better. [But] I knew that I was playing well during the week, I knew that tennis changes everything very fast, so I was competing better at the end of the second set, and then my tennis appeared and I finished in the way that I wanted."

Sitting at No.17 on the PIF WTA Rankings entering this week, Haddad Maia continued her outstanding run of form over her last three events. Since the beginning of Cleveland, Haddad Maia has now won 12 of her past 14 matches. After making her first final of the season in Cleveland, she went on to make the US Open quarterfinals and now takes home her first title since winning the 2023 WTA Elite Trophy Zhuhai last fall. 

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"I knew that I was working very hard during the last weeks, last months," Haddad Maia said.

"I feel stronger, I feel that I'm very competitive now. I'm in a good moment, ready for the next week. I feel that I'm doing very good things, working hard, and yeah, let's see what the end of the season brings to me."

Haddad Maia captured the title in Seoul seven years after making the final in her tournament debut in 2017. She is now a career 8-1 at the tournament. Her win also improved her head-to-head record against Kasatkina to 3-1. 

Kasatkina surged early: Kasatkina needed just 26 minutes to pocket a dominant first set. Kasatkina came into the final trailing the head-to-head 1-2 against Haddad Maia, but the World No.13 wove her web of intelligent baseline tennis to keep the Brazilian on her heels. 

Kasatkina served in 89 percent of her first serves in the first set and lost just two points on her serve. She also went a perfect 2 for 2 on her break-point chances. The trend continued early in the second set. Kasatkina broke early to lead 2-0 before Haddad Maia snapped her seven-game losing streak to get on the board.

Haddad Maia storms back: Surging in form, Haddad Maia painted the sideline with a forehand winner to earn her first break of the match at 3-3. The turning point came in the ninth game. After feeling hard done by a line call and receiving a time violation, Haddad Maia gamely saved a break point with a forehand flurry and held to lead 5-4. She then broke Kasatkina by a Hawk-Eye-confirmed millimeter to send the match to a deciding set after just 73 minutes of play.

Haddad Maia snuffs out Kasatkina's last chance: Haddad Maia struck first in the third set to lead 3-1 and wiped out a triple-break-point chance for Kasatkina to win five points in a row and hold to 4-1. After snuffing out Kasatkina's chance to get back into the match, Haddad Maia closed out her victory after 1 hour and 50 minutes. 

Doubles result: Earlier in the day, Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Liudmila Samsonova eased to the doubles title with a 6-1, 6-0 win over No.3 seeds Miyu Kato and Zhang Shuai.