Saguenay 2022 singles finalists

Photo: Valérie Simard

The singles draw at the Saguenay National Bank Challenger has reached its conclusion and a new champion has been crowned at the $60,000 ITF World Tennis Tour event celebrating its 15th anniversary at the Saguenay Indoor Tennis Club.

Sunday’s championship match pitted Toronto’s Katherine Sebov, who won the Saguenay crown in 2018, against India’s Karman Kaur Thandi, ranked no. 308 in the world. Both players were appearing in their second ITF final of the season. En route to the title bout, Thandi won all four of her matches in straight sets and didn’t lose more than four games in any of those eight sets. For her part, Sebov beat three seeded players to reach the final, including top-seeded Moyuka Uchijima of Japan.

In the end, Thandi came out on top in a tightly contested final, easily her toughest match of the week, overcoming a set and a break deficit to defeat Sebov 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 after more than two hours of high-quality play. The 24-year-old hit nine aces in the victory and managed to convert four of the eight break points she earned.

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The triumph is Thandi’s second singles title of the season and the biggest of her professional career.  In June, she lifted the trophy on home soil at a $25,000 ITF event in Gurugram, India. She also met Canadian Eugenie Bouchard in the second round of the Chennai Open last month in her lone WTA appearance this season.

As for Sebov, she finishes as the runner-up for the second time in 2022 after also coming up short in her title bid at the $25,000 ITF event in Monastir, Tunisia in January. The 23-year-old took home top honours in Saguenay four years ago thanks to a win over Quirine Lemoine in the championship match.

With another successful edition of the Saguenay National Bank Challenger in the books, the ITF World Women’s Tennis Tour now heads to Toronto for the $60,000 Tevlin Challenger just underway at Sobeys Stadium.

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