'Third time's the charm': Galfi wins WTA 125 Oeiras title
After two runner-up finishes, Dalma Galfi is finally a WTA 125 champion. The unseeded Hungarian defeated No. 2 seed Katie Volynets of the United States 4-6, 6-1, 6-2 to win the Oeiras Ladies Open title in Oeiras, Portugal.
Rain played havoc with the schedule all week, but the clay-court event finished on time on Sunday, concluding with Galfi's 2-hour and 13-minute comeback in the final.
"Third time’s the charm," 26-year-old Galfi said in her Instagram post celebrating her biggest professional title.
In Galfi's two prior WTA 125 finals, she lost to Sara Errani at 2022 Contrexeville and to Darja Semenistaja earlier this month at La Bisbal d'Emporda. All of her WTA 125 finals have been on clay, and she pushed all of them to three sets.
On this occasion, Galfi was able to shake off the loss of the first set to control the next two. Galfi saved all four break points she faced in the second and third sets combined.
All told, Galfi dropped only one set en route to the title, which was the first set of the final. She has won nine of her last 10 matches, with the La Bisbal d'Emporda final preceding the Oeiras title by two weeks.
Currently ranked No. 149, Galfi is projected to near the Top 120 in this week's updated rankings. The 2015 ITF Junior World Champion and Junior US Open champion, Galfi reached her career-high PIF WTA Ranking of No. 79 in 2022.
Also on Sunday, Portuguese sisters Francisca and Matilde Jorge successfully defended their Oeiras Ladies Open doubles title on home soil.
Last year, the Jorge siblings won their biggest career title at this event. This year, the No. 2 seeds repeated the feat by defeating unseeded Anastasia Detiuc and Patricia Maria Tig 6-1, 6-2 in a 63-minute final.
