By Erik Gudris | Saturday, January 6, 2017
Karolina Pliskova continued her recent surge up the WTA rankings by claiming the Brisbane International title to kick off her 2017 season.
Brisbane: Dimitrov and Nishikori to Meet in ATP Final
Now the Czech star finds herself a strong contender for the upcoming Australian Open later this month.
Pliskova credited her new coach David Kotyza with the win and thinks she can play even better.
"I think I can still play better than I was playing this tournament, but it was enough for every match here," Pliskova said to WTA.com. "We have been working on few things in the last month when I was in preparation at home. So he's just showing me new stuff which I was not able to do before. Let's hope we can still improve, and let's hope this is not the best result what we gonna have."
The third seeded Pliskova faced off against unseeded Alize Cornet of France in Saturday’s final. Pliskova took control early in the opening set with a blistering display of winners against Cornet.
After only 18 minutes, Pliskova wrapped up the set 6-0.
Cornet, using defense from the backcourt, finally managed to get on the scoreboard in the second set. But Pliskova just proved too strong as she kept up her inevitable march to the title.
The US Open finalist Pliskova fired down seven aces and never faced a break point all night.
With a final overhead, Pliskova clinched the title 6-0, 6-3 in just 66 minutes.
Brisbane is the seventh career title for Pliskova and her first WTA Premier title as well. With the win, Pliskova will rise to No. 5 in the rankings next week.