Daniela Hantuchova has been crowned the 2013 Aegon Classic Singles Champion after a 7-6(5), 6-4 victory over Donna Vekic.
The Slovakian World No.60 claimed her sixth WTA singles title after one hour and 40 minutes of play on the grass courts of The Edgbaston Priory Club.
"I always enjoy coming back here," said Hantuchova. "It is such a nice tournament which has improved over the years and having the Ann Jones Centre Court makes it really special.
The former world No.5 continued: "Vekic is a very talented girl and obviously a great career ahead of her. She moves very well and has a great serve. She has a great team around her and I am sure we will hear a lot more from her in the future."
In a tight first set, where powerful hitting from the back of the court led the game, 30 year-old Hantuchova was forced to take the opener in the tie-break.
In the second set the 16 year-old Croatian started strongly breaking the Hantuchova serve to take a 2-1 lead before calling a medical timeout for a trapped rib.
When play resumed Hantuchova broke straight back and from then on dominated the match.
Speaking after the final Vekic commented: “It was a good week for me and I am very happy to get to the final. I think she was just a better player out there today. I gave it my all.
I think I played very well, it was my first WTA event on grass and I and I am looking forward to Wimbledon.”
Doubles
Australians Ashleigh Barty and Casey Dellacqua won the Aegon Classic doubles crown to take their first Tour-level title together; beating Marina Erakovic (NZL) and Cara Black (ZIM) 75 64 in Sunday evening’s final.
"We lost in the Australian Open final and then we haven’t really played together since then so it’s been great to get our focus back as a team and we played really well this week.” Commented Casey Dellacqua afterwards.
Ashleigh Barty added: “It’s been an amazing week. We’ve been pretty fortunate not to come on and off to often because of the rain. We had to wait a bit to play the final but it’s turned out great. We’re heading to Wimbledon now and that’s pretty exciting. I’ve never played doubles there before so I’m looking forward to that.”