World No. 1 Ashleigh Barty and No. 5 Alexander Zverev each flashed top form heading into the US Open in winning the Western & Southern Open singles titles on Sunday in Cincinnati.
Barty, the Australian who has spent 82 consecutive weeks at No. 1, defeated Swiss 24-year old Jil Teichmann, 6-3, 6-1, in 1 hour, 13 minutes. The title was Barty’s 13th on tour and first at a US Open Series event, while the 76th-ranked Teichmann — who defeated three players ranked in the Top 12 in three days to reach the final — was just the third player ranked outside the Top 75 to reach the Cincinnati final and projects to rise to No. 45.
Zverev, the Tokyo Olympic gold medalist and 2020 US Open runner-up, dispatched seventh-ranked Russian Andrey Rublev, 6-2, 6-3, in 59 minutes. The 24-year-old German won his fifth ATP Masters 1000 title and carries an 11-match win streak into the US Open, where he projects to be a top-four seed.
The World No. 5 arrived in Cincinnati winless at the tournament. But after winning a semi-final thriller against Stefanos Tsitsipas in the semi-finals, Zverev played his best tennis against Rublev to claim his fourth title of the season.
“The first win I ever had on these courts was on Wednesday, four days ago, and now I have my first title here,” Zverev said in his on-court interview. “It has been an incredible week, a lot of great matches. It is an incredible feeling going into the US Open.”
The US Open Series concludes this week with the Winston-Salem Open ATP 250 in North Carolina — and the inaugural Tennis in the Land WTA 250 in Cleveland. Tennis Channel and its streaming service Tennis Channel Plus will have week-long coverage.
