Flavia Pennetta claimed a first grand slam singles title with a 7-6(4) 6-2 win over Roberta Vinci in an improbable all-Italian US Open final on Saturday to cap an extraordinary fortnight packed with upsets.
Pennetta, 33, becomes the fourth oldest grand slam winner in the Open Era and joins 2010 French Open champion Francesca Schiavone as the only Italian women to win a major title.
The match was set up by jaw-dropping upsets as unseeded Vinci knocked off world number one Serena Williams in the semi-finals to end the 33-year-old American’s quest for a calendar year Grand Slam.
Pennetta’s path to the final included two huge hurdles which she cleared with confidence in taking down Czech fifth seed Petra Kvitova in the quarter-finals and Romanian second seed Simona Halep in the semi-finals.
The Italian then announced her retirement from tennis moments after winning the title.
Retirement did not nag at Pennetta’s mind as she went through her matches. “Sometimes it was getting in my mind, but I didn’t think too much about that,” she said. “I was just focused on my game. Just play tennis. That was my goal.” Now Pennetta, whose boyfriend is Italian ATP player Fabio Fognini, faces the unknown and strange world of life after tennis. “I don’t know what I like to do, so I have to discover everything,” she said. “It’s a new life for me.
“Sometimes we are more scared to take the decision because we don’t know what we like or what we’re going to do after, how is going to be the life. “But I think it’s going to be a pretty good life. I did everything that I expected. “And more. Much more.”
