Pauline Parmentier and Virginie Razzano of France faced off under mostly cloudy skies on Sunday in the final of the Waves Open 57.
Pauline was able to play the tournament due to losing her first round match at Wimbledon, unlike Luxembourg’s top player, Mandy Minella, who’s first round win and rain delays kept her from participating in the tournament.
Pauline is the top seed in the tournament and the top ranked participant from the WTA. Virginie Razzano held the WTA No. 16 ranking in 2009, and most recently lost narrowly in the singles semifinals of Strasbourg International to Caroline Garcia.
The match was looking like a one-sided affair as Razzano raced to lead the first set 5-1 before Parmentier started to gain momentum and Razzano taking the set 6-3. In the second set Parmentier dominated and Razzano had an injury time out to retake her right knee. Parmentier supporters cheered her on, eventually prompting Razzano to ask the crowd for some of the love too, to which they complied.
After her injury time out, Razzano had a noticeable limp but carried on and even produced some of the best rallies of the match. Second set to Parmentier 6-4. In the end Parmentier prevailed with a score of 6-1 in the third set to take her first Waves Open 57 title.
Waves Open 57 has a family feel to it - from the volunteers who sacrifice their personal time to make the tournament successful and the family oriented activities outside of tennis to keep the kids amused, to the professionalism and approachability of the organisation and the players who seem to be friends more than adversaries as much as is possible in professional sport.
Photos by Jan McIntyre
