Hadzic and Whittington crowned in Cairns
With the conclusion of the 2013 Cairns Tennis International, two first-time Pro Tour winners - Azra Hadzic and Andrew Whittington - have been crowned.
Cairns, Australia, 22 September 2013 | Travis Dragojlo
With the conclusion of the 2013 Cairns Tennis International, two first-time Pro Tour winners have been crowned.
In the women’s singles final, Victorian second seed Azra Hadzic secured her professional title by defeating fourth seeded Western Australian Jessica Moore.,
Hadzic was in sublime form as she raced through the first set untroubled, yet Moore started to find her rhythm in the second set and hit back to level the match.
Hadzic stepped up her game again in the final set to come away with a 6-3 3-6 6-2 victory, and will take more special memories from Cairns home with her.
“Ever since that first year I’ve had really good results here and to make a final and get my first (Pro Tour) win I’m really happy about,” she said.
“It got a bit tight in the second set, but I forgot about the conditions and got back into my groove.”
The men’s singles final was contested between good friends and doubles champions Andrew Whittington and Alex Bolt.
Whittington went one better than last week’s Toowoomba final by taking the match and his maiden pro tour singles title; he rarely looked troubled on serve as he broke Bolt early in both sets and eventually served out the match 6-4 6-4 on his sixth match point.
Whittington spoke of the nerves he was feeling. “I’ve never felt like that before, I still feel like I’m out there playing,” he said.
“I was shaking and after I lost the first point I didn’t panic, but I definitely tensed up a bit. It feels good to be up here a winner, that’s for sure.”
The Australian Pro Tour now moves to Central Australia for the Alice Springs Tennis International with main draw matches commencing Tuesday.