Fes Finals to Award Winner Maiden WTA Title

By Erik Gudris

Photo Credit: Mark Howard

(April 27th, 2012) The finals of the Grand Prix De SAR La Princesse Lalla Meryem event will feature two women going for their first ever WTA title.

For Spain's Laura Pous-Tio, 2012 has not been kind to her as a knee injury forced her out of action for several months. But after falling out of the top 100, Pous-Tio is looking to return to that area after her results in Fes this week.

Pous-Tio battled against lucky loser Mathilde Johansson as each woman split the opening sets in their semifinal. It was only until the final game that Pous-Tio stepped up her returns to break Johansson at love to earn a 6-1, 2-6, 7-5 victory.

Facing her in the finals will be qualifier Kiki Bertens of the Netherlands who continued her dream run with a 6-3, 6-4 win over No. 5 seed Simona Halep. Despite some brave defense, Halep had little answers against Bertens's powerful forehand that helped her claim her berth into the finals in just under 90 minutes. Before this week, Bertens had never won a main draw WTA match.

Pous-Tio leads the overall head to head versus Bertens two to one and won their last meeting in 2011. The winner will earn 280 WTA ranking points and $37,000 US.