SANTA FE, October 16, 2023 (by Steve Pratt)
Ukraine’s Yuliia Starodubtseva captured her fourth career ITF singles title and third in doubles – all in 2023 – in this her first year on the ITF World Tennis Tour circuit walking away with a pair of trophies, a nice paycheck and valuable WTA ranking points as the third annual TaliMar Rancho Santa Fe Open came to a close on Sunday at the Rancho Santa Fe Tennis Club.
The former All-American at Old Dominion University in Virginia, Starodubtseva’s followed up her 7-5, 6-3 win in the singles final over Switzerland’s Lulu Sun by teaming with American Makenna Jones for the first time to capture the doubles championship over Russia’s Tatiana Prozorova and former USC All-American Madison Sieg, 6-3, 4-6, 10-6.
The No. 8 seeded 23-year-old Starodubtseva, who lives and trains full-time in Westchester County, N.Y., said she will take a much-needed day off of tennis on Monday and ask for a Wednesday start for her next event this week, an $80,000-level USTA Pro Circuit tourney in Macon, Ga.
After a close first set, Starodubtseva dominated the Swiss lefty Sun, 22, as she jumped out to a 5-1 second-set lead. Serving for the match, Starodubtseva went up 40-0, but Sun wouldn’t go down easily battling the game back to deuce before winning it and then saving a fourth match point serving down 2-5 before Starodubtseva finally righted the ship and closed her out.
When the WTA rankings are released Monday, Starodubtseva will sit at a career high No. 175. She pocketed $10,814, including $9,142 for her singles win and $1,672 for her share of the doubles purse.
Like Starodubtseva, Sun was yet another player competing this week who played college tennis in the U.S. In her only season of play, the freshman Sun sparked the University of Texas to the 2021 NCAA team title match providing the clinching win against Pepperdine.
In the doubles final, Starodubtseva and Jones, 25, entertained the enthusiastic crowd with some fine doubles points as the Tampa. Fla., resident Jones won her ninth ITF pro doubles title of the year. Jones won the NCAA doubles title playing for the University of North Carolina in 2021.
No stranger to finals Sunday in San Diego, Jones last year won her first ITF pro doubles title at University of San Diego at the $15,000 SoCal Pro Series event and the following week her first ITF pro singles title at Barnes Tennis Center.
Prozorova and Sieg were unseeded this week and knocked off the No. 4 and No. 1 seeds to make the finals in their first tourney playing together.
