TORONTO, November 5, 2018 (Press Release)
The singles champion was crowned on Sunday at the Tevlin Challenger. Sanctioned by the International Tennis Federation (ITF), the tournament offers $60,000 USD in prize money and was held from October 29 to November 4 at the Aviva Centre in Toronto.
The tournament’s top seed Kateryna Kozlova of the Ukraine was facing Quirine Lemoine of the Netherlands for a chance to take home the title in Toronto. Kozlova, former world no. 62, was in search of her first title of the year, having been crowned champion on six other occasions in her young career. For her part, Lemoine was competing in her second consecutive final, falling short of the title last week in Saguenay. The 26-year-old reached a career high ranking of no. 137 in 2017.
Despite being the underdog on paper, Lemoine took control of the match from the start, playing some of the best tennis of her career. She controlled the pace of play and capitalized on her opponent’s errors. After taking the opening set in under half an hour, she experienced a little trouble on serve in the second, committing three double faults and tallying no aces. It was a set full of breaks, where Lemoine managed to regain consistency and get a crucial hold on serve. She was crowned singles champion of the 2018 Tevlin Challenger with her 6-2, 6-3 victory over Kozlova.
This is the 16th singles title of Lemoine’s career and her first of the year. Throughout the tournament, she was victorious against three of the top seeds, Conny Perrin (no. 2), Bianca Andreescu (no. 8) and Kozlova (No. 1). With her win on Sunday, Lemoine will climb back into the Top 300 in the WTA rankings.
The Tevlin Challenger was the final Canadian Challenger tournament in 2018.
