Tennis players are among the few athletes who continue to delight fans with major victories even in the face of unprecedented sanctions against Russian sports.

If Daria Kasatkina failed to leave the group at the final WTA tournament, then Veronika Kudermetova went all the way in doubles and lifted the coveted trophy over her head.

The Russian tennis player achieved the main success in her career and went down in history, despite a provocation from a colleague from Ukraine.

Veronica repeated the best result in her career

Veronika Kudermetova was just a little short of getting into the tournament in Fort Worth in singles, but she made it there in a pair with Belgian Elise Mertens. The start of the tournament for the Russian-Belgian couple was the most successful – Kudermetova and Mertens won three victories in the Pam Shriver group, in turn beating the duets of Kichenok / Ostapenko, Danilina / Haddad-Maya and Dabrowski / Olmos.

The most difficult meeting was with Lyudmila Kichenok and Elena Ostapenko. Veronica and Elise lost the first set, but were able to find internal reserves and achieved the final victory in the tie-break. Additional stress to this match was given by the behavior of the Ukrainian Kichenok. Before the game, she said that she would not want to play with Kudermetova “for obvious reasons”, and after the defeat she refused to shake hands with our athlete. Fortunately, Kichenok’s provocation did not affect the mood of the Russian woman and did not unsettle her.

In the parallel quartet, the Czech couple Kreychikova/Sinyakova, seeded under the first number, performed undefeated.

In the semi-finals, Kudermetova and Mertens confidently dealt with Desiree Krawczyk and Demi Schurs — 6:1, 6:1. In the final, the Russian and the Belgian could again play with Kichenok and Ostapenko, but they lost to the reigning champions and the main favorites from the Czech Republic.

Photo: © Robert Prange / Contributor / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru

In the decisive match, viewers in the United States saw a spectacle worthy of the final. The rivals exchanged won sets and went to a super tie-break. Barbora and Kateryna were leading 7:2, and it seemed that they would not miss the victory. However, Veronika and Elise managed to catch up with their rivals and win a strong-willed victory – 6:2, 4:6, [11:9].

“At the super tie-break, when the score was 2:7, I told Elisa that we must believe, we must remain positive and that we continue to work, no matter what happens,” Kudermetova told the WTA press service after the game.

For the victory in the tournament, Veronica and Elise received prize money of 360 thousand dollars, and in the ranking they added 1500 points each. Thus, the Russian athlete returns to a record-breaking second place in the doubles ranking, while Mertens will become the fifth racket of the world in pairs.

Veronika became the seventh Russian woman in history to win the doubles title at the WTA Finals. Previously, Anna Kournikova (1999, 2000), Elena Dementieva (2002), Nadezhda Petrova (2004, 2012), Maria Kirilenko (2012), Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina (2016) succeeded in this.