Sorribes Tormo powerful performance to defeat Alexandrova, capturing second title of her career at the 2023 Cleveland Open

Sara Sorribes Tormo defeated Ekaterina Alexandrova 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 to secure her second career title at the Cleveland Opeen.

Russian player Alexandrova couldn't uphold her favored position in the Cleveland final and faced a tough challenge against former world No. 37 Sorribes Tormo. The Spanish player reached her second WTA final, with her previous victory coming at the 2021 Guadalajara Open, where she defeated Eugenie Bouchard in straight sets.

Sorribes caused a surprise by entering the main draw as a Lucky Loser after losing in the second round of qualifying to Clara Burel. Her tournament journey began with a victory over Katerina Siniakova, who retired with a score of 6-2, 4-0 in favor of the Spanish player.

She then stunned the third seed Veronika Kudermetova and the ninth seed Sloane Stephens, securing a victory in the semifinals against Tatjana Maria to set up a clash with Alexandrova.

Throughout the tournament, the Russian player advanced with victories over Patricia Maria Tig, qualifiers Aliaksandra Sasnovich and Xinyu Wang, and then in the semifinals against Zhu Lin.

In their head-to-head, they only had one prior encounter in the 2016 Linz Open qualifiers, with Sorribes Tormo emerging victorious 6-4, 7-6(6).

This time, it seemed that the momentum was in Aleksandrova's favor as she dominated the first set. She recovered from an early break by Sorribes and quickly took the lead with her own service game. The Russian secured another break, making the advantage insurmountable, and claimed the first set 6-3.

In the second set, once again, it was Aleksandrova who secured an early break in the fifth game and then took a 4-2 lead. However, the Spanish player demonstrated her resilience by breaking back to level the score at 4-4. Sorribes won four consecutive games to come back in the match and took the second set 6-4.

In a hard-fought third set, once again, the Spanish player started from behind but managed to stay in the game. With three breaks from Sorribes and two from Aleksandrova, the Spaniard clinched the championship on her fourth match point and won 3-6, 6-4, 6-4.