Qualifier Liudmila Samsonova wins first WTA title in Berlin, gets Wimbledon wildcard

Berlin: Qualifier Liudmila Samsonova won her first WTA title with victory over Belinda Bencic in the final of the Berlin grass court tournament on Sunday and was then handed a wildcard to make her Wimbledon debut. Samsonova, 22, made a mockery of her world ranking of 106 to recover from losing the first set to earn a 1-6, 6-1, 6-3 victory over Swiss fifth seed Bencic. After the match, Samsonova revealed she had been granted the final main draw wildcard into Wimbledon which starts on June 28. “They just told me that I’m going to have the wildcard for the main draw, so I’m so happy,” Samsonova said. It was another display of power tennis from the Russian who stunned former world number one Victoria Azarenka in Saturday’s semi-final. Despite having her service broken twice in losing the first set, Samsonova immediately applied pressure at the start of the second. She racing into a 4-0 lead to serve out the set, which she won by blasting down seven aces without reply. Bencic, ranked 12th in the world, was broken again at the start of the deciding set and Samsonova applied enough pressure at 5-3 up to convert her second match point.