ISTANBUL: Anastasia Potapova defeated fellow Russian Veronika Kudermetova to win her maiden WTA title in Istanbul on Sunday, shrugging off her country’s controversial ban from this year’s Wimbledon. The 21-year-old, ranked 122 and who came through qualifying, swept to a 6-3, 6-1 win over the third seed in one hour and 23 minutes. Potapova had lost both her previous two finals — in Moscow and Tashkent in 2018. On Sunday, the former junior world number one and Wimbledon girls champion recovered from 1-3 down in the first set to win eight straight games, and 11 of the last 12. World number 29 Kudermetova was contesting her fifth career final and third of 2022 following Melbourne, where she was runner-up to Simona Halep, and Dubai in February, where she fell to Jelena Ostapenko. Wimbledon banned all Russian and Belarusian players from this summer’s Grand Slam tournament due to the invasion of Ukraine. It was a decision condemned by the ATP and WTA as well as a host of players including world number one Novak Djokovic who described the sanction as “crazy”. Despite the Wimbledon ban, Russian and Belarusian players can still compete on the main tours but are barred from competing under the name or flag of their countries. Their national teams have, however, been banned from the Davis Cup and BJK Cup competitions.
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