Kiki Bertens wins twice in a day to take Charleston title

Kiki Bertens overpowered Germany’s Julia Goerges to cap a long day at the WTA event in South Carolina, claiming with her fifth career title and third in the past 11 months.

The Dutch 12th seed beat German fifth seed Goerges 6-2 6-1 to round off a mammoth day for both players, who earlier had to play their semifinals to take their place in the title match.

“It’s just unbelievable. I think I cannot really realise it yet, but I’m just so happy and proud I think of myself,” Bertens told wtatennis.com.

“It’s a great start of the clay-court season, and hopefully still more to come, but this one I have already and I’m really happy with that.

“I know I can play good on clay, but it was just a great feeling. I think in the final Julia didn’t play her best, but still, I was just trying to play aggressive where I could, just to hit some balls in the court when she was … making some errors. I think overall I did a really good job.”

After rain washed out Saturday’s semifinals, Bertens outlasted American Madison Keys 6-4 6-7(2) 7-6(5) in Sunday’s opening match.

Keys served for the match in the third set leading 5-4 and held a match point at 40-30, but could not convert.

The fifth-seeded Gorges defeated Latvian eighth seed Anastasija Sevastova 7-6(5) 6-3 after their match had been suspended on Saturday with the score 4-4 in the first set.

But it was Bertens, ranked 27th in the world and with a longer break between matches than Goerges, who showed fire and drive on centre court in the final.

It’s the biggest title of Bertens’ career – her previous four all came at WTA International level.