Mihaela Buzarnescu beats Maria Sakkari in San Jose to win first WTA title

The 30-year-old Romanian dominated Maria Sakkari, 23, 6-1 6-0, winning five games in a row in the first set and breaking twice before the Greek managed to nail down one of her own.

The second set was an even more one-sided affair, Buzarnescu winning a further three break points to seal the win in one hour, 13 minutes.

She told the WTA: “Now, I think I believe in everything. I started to believe that I could play good when I qualified for the US Open last year.

“Everything’s (been) better and better for me. I’ll just try to focus for each tournament and each game as I did before.

“Maybe people will look differently at me now, but I don’t want to change anything… just think of the good moments, and play.”

Number five seed Buzarnescu entered the tournament in San Jose having previously reached two finals this season; losing to Petra Kvitova in Prague in April and Elise Mertens in Hobart in January.

The win will see her rise up the WTA rankings from 24th to 20th to become the second Romanian in the grouping, along with world number one Simona Halep.

She congratulated her compatriot on Twitter, saying: “So happy for you, Miki! Welcome to the Top 20”.

Svetlana Kuznetsova came back from a set down to beat Donna Vekic and seal her second Citi Open title in a two-and-a-half hour battle in Washington.

The two-time grand slam champion, 33, went down 4-6 in the first set to her seventh-seed opponent, 22, who broke twice.

The pair slugged it out over the second set which ended in a tiebreak that Kuznetsova took 7-6 (9/7) after saving four championship points.

Kuznetsova appeared to have the upper hand in the third, breaking twice as she put the score at 5-0.

A last-gasp fightback by Vekic saw her claw back a point and break to take the game to 5-2, but Kuznetsova broke back for the win.