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Alycia Parks admitted she was incredulous after upsetting top seed Caroline Garcia to her maiden WTA title in Lyon. Parks, 22, defeated local favorite Garcia 7-6(7) 7-5 in the Lyon final. Parks, who was competing in both ITF and Challenger level tournaments last year, notched her first top-five win by beating Garcia.
«It feels amazing to have my first WTA tour-level championship trophy. Words can’t explain it. Just last year, I was in a [ITF Challenger] $60,000 final, and now I’ve won a WTA 250,» Parks said after beating Garcia, according to the WTA website.
Coming into the Lyon final, 2022 WTA Finals champion Garcia was the favorite to end up on the winning side. But Parks came out playing her game and ended up winning her first WTA title. «I made sure to focus on my service games today to get through the match, because I knew it wasn’t going to be an easy match.
So staying within myself and fighting for every point helped me get through the game,» Parks reflected.
How Parks defeated Garcia
The only break points of the first set came in the third game, when Garcia saved a break point.
In the first set tiebreak, Parks won the eleventh point to take a 6-5 lead and win her first set point. Facing set point, Garcia won the next two points to take a 7-6 lead and secure her first set point. From then on, Parks won the next three points to win an extremely tight first set.
In the second set, Parks saved a break point in the fifth game, but also missed a break point in the eighth game. Garcia had a great chance to earn his first break of the match in game 11, but missed three break points as Parks took a 6-5 lead.
In game 12, when Garcia was serving to stay in the match, Parks broke the Frenchwoman’s serve to seal the victory. After his triumph in Lyon, Parks rose to his career-high of 51st in the world.
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