French Caroline Garcia, world No.5, qualified on Saturday for the final of the WTA 250 tournament in Monterrey, Mexico, where she will try on Sunday to win her 12th title against Croatian Donna Vekic, the first since her victory at the Masters. 2022.
In the half, the Lyonnaise, seeded N.1, took an hour and 41 minutes to dominate in two sets (6-3, 6-4) the Belgian Elise Mertens, seeded number 4.
And, after lackluster performances in recent weeks, here is the Frenchwoman back in the final of the Mexican tournament, eight years later – she lost in 2015 against the Swiss Timea Bacsinszky.
Caroline Garcia will be the favorite on Sunday (match from 11:30 p.m. Paris time) against Vekic, 26 years old and 31st in the world, who beat the Chinese Lin Zhu (N.5), 7-5, 6-2 in the semi-finals , in 1 hour 31 minutes.
Be careful, however: if Garcia has already dominated the Croatian four times, she has conceded five defeats against this same opponent, the last at the Olympic Games in 2021.
But the 29-year-old French player will be able to rely on the confidence stored up during her week in Mexico, during which she did not concede any sets, as was the case again on Saturday.
Faced with Mertens, “Caro” was indeed able to develop his attacking tennis without a hitch, totaling 33 winning strokes against 17 for his opponent. And she only committed 14 unforced errors.
“It was very intense (…), with a lot of break points to discard, for both of them, and they were with a lot of winning points”, reacted the Frenchwoman.
Caroline Garcia can now win her first title in 2023, after those of Bogota (2014), Mallorca (2016), Strasbourg (2016), Beijing (2017), Wuhan (2017), Tianjin (2018), Nottingham (2019), Cincinnati (2022), Warsaw (2022), Bad Homburg (2022) and, of course, the Masters, the crowning achievement of the last season.
Vekic, seeded number 3, will chase a fourth title after being crowned in Kuala Lumpur (2014), Nottingham (2017) and Courmayeur (2021).
