Photo: Valérie Simard
After a dominant string of matches in the Saguenay National Bank Challenger, Katherine Sebov has come out victorious.
The Canadian, who was the favourite to win it all, bested Hungarian eight seed Fanny Stollar in straight sets 6-4, 6-4 in the finals today, winning the top honours in the tournament for the first time since 2018 when she beat Quirine Lemoine. She previously made the final a second time a year ago.
Though Stollar didn’t win a set, she put up a strong effort, especially in the first, when she came close to pulling off the comeback after breaking Sebov’s serve in the eighth game. She wound up winning her service the following game, bringing her within one, but could not break Sebov’s serve a second time.
The second set also went 6-4 but both Sebov and Stollar recorded one more break of serve to make things close. Three of the final four games resulted in breaks of serve, but Sebov remained strong in her final service game to seal the victory.
Sebov’s final win in the tournament concluded a pattern from each of her previous matches: she did not lose a single set. Though some sets were more tightly contested, like her first set of her first match against Natasha Sengphrachanh, Sebov had no difficulty repeating the feat she achieved five years ago.
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Following her initial win, Sebov went on to beat three other Canadians including Scarlett Nicholson, Victoria Mboko, and Isabelle Boulais.
Stollar, on the other hand, won three of her first four victories in three sets, including a resilient comeback in the semifinals against Arina Rodionova. Though the 33-year-old fell short in her final battle, her, she never gave up and fought hard until the end.
A victory in Saguenay gives Sebov her first tournament win since March 2023 when she beat Himeno Sakatsume in the W25 in Toronto.
