After dispatching her opponent in less than 30 minutes in a 6-0 first set, Edina Gallovits looked to be well on her way to an easy win.
Her opponent, Julie Ditty, had other plans.
After the dominant first set, Ditty fought off a match point in the second-set tiebreaker to force a third set, then nearly came through in the third before Gallovits won the final two games for a 6-0, 6-7 (7), 7-5 win in the singles final of the $50,000 USTA Women’s Professional Tennis Tournament at the City of Auburn/Auburn University Yarbrough Tennis Center on Sunday.
“It was a pretty big win for me,” Gallovits, a native of Romania, said. “It was my first win this year because I’ve been playing in big tournaments and I’ve been hurt.
“Getting out here on outdoor courts and getting a win felt really good.”
Gallovits, ranked No. 94 in the world coming into the tournament, received $7,300 for her win.
Ditty walked away with $4,000, and felt pretty good about her near-comeback.
“I just had a really slow start,” she said. “I didn’t feel my shots. I was a little more aggressive in the second set. I just felt like I was playing catch-up the whole match.
“(Gallovits) played real well. She played her game the whole time.”
The event was the first USTA tournament at the new Yarbrough Tennis Center, and tournament director Travis DeBardelaben was pleased with the results.
“We’ve gotten rave reviews from the USTA pro circuit,” DeBardelaben, also Director of Tennis for the City of Auburn, said. “Nothing went wrong, our volunteers have been awesome and our sponsors have been awesome.
“When you consider we didn’t have much publicity because we put this thing together in three weeks, it went really well. We just put on something in three weeks that’s a year-long process.”
DeBardelaben estimated 1,000 had visited the event over its eight days.
“(The USTA has) asked us to host another one in April,” DeBardelaben said. “We’re seeing what we can do about that. We’ve got a great facility here and we just keep adding to it.”
And the finals competitors were both impressed with the facility and the city.
“This facility is great,” Ditty, a Kentucky native, said. “The indoor courts, the people here are nice and accomodating. There seems to be a lot of community support for what they’re doing. It seems like a really good town for tennis.”
“It’s really nice,” Gallovits said. “I loved the courts and I loved the university.
“And I loved the toilet paper in the trees (on Saturday). I’ve never seen that.”
tcottrell@oanow.com | 737-2511
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