France's Amelie Mauresmo stretched her win streak to 15 matches in Florida today, defeating South Africa's Amanda Coetzer 6-4, 7-5 to capture her third consecutive WTA title.
Mauresmo, seeded sixth, rose to 20-1, the best start by any WTA player this season, by winning the 90,000-dollar top rpize at the 565,000-dollarclay court event. Mauresmo is on the longest title streak of her career.
"It's just confidence is here," Mauresmo said. "I feel physically very strong. Today I played the way I have to play every player. It's all comingtogether."
Since losing to Venus Williams in the fourth round of the Australian Open, 21-year-old Mauresmo has won titles at Paris and Nice in February and here added the first United States tuneup for next month's French Open to that list.
Fourth seed Coetzer, 29, saw her eight-match clay court win streak snapped. Coetzer began the run by winning last month's Mexican Open butcould not complete the streak with her ninth career title.
Mauresmo opened with a service break and broke Coetzer at love in the fifth and seventh games on her way to a 5-2 first-set lead. But Coetzer broke back when Mauresmo netted a backhand and saved two set points to hold and reach 5-4.
Mauresmo then held in five points, taking the first set when Coetzer netted a forehand service return.
In the second set, Mauresmo again opened by breaking Coetzer and both players held until Mauresmo was serving for the title.
The 1999 Australian Open runner-up hit her first two double faults of the match and Coetzer zipped a forehand winner down the line to level theset at 5-5.
"It's always tough to finish it off," Mauresmo said. "I tried not to think about three tournaments in a row. You start not to play your game. At 5-allI decided to let it all go and fight to the end."
Mauresmo rallied to reclaim the break on an overhead smash after a long rally and served out the final game at love, taking the final point whenCoetzer sent a backhand long.
Mauresmo will rise to seventh from 15th in the WTA rankings to be released on Monday. Coetzer, who took home runner-up money of 47,000dollars, will improve one spot to ninth.
"I want to congratulate Amelie on a great week and playing an excellent match," Coetzer said. "(She) was fantastic." -AFP