Victoria Azarenka returns to third after WTA Championships in Istanbul

HEAD racquet rebel Victoria Azarenka will return to her career-best World No. 3 in the WTA ranking after coming up as runner up at the TEB BNP Paribas WTA Championships final in Istanbul on Sunday. After a final on highest level, she has to take a fighting 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 loss to Wimbledon winner Petra Kvitova.

Azarenka, playing with her YouTek IG Extreme Pro, mounted a comeback after losing a 53-minute first set but was unable to close out the potential upset. "I gave it all today”, said Azarenka. “The crowd kept me fighting all the way through - they were amazing today and all week, I have no words to describe it. It's hard to lose, but I'm glad I lost to such a champion who deserved to win. Petra played amazing. She really did a great job."

The HEAD player has been ranked in the Top 5 since April and ended the season with three titles including Miami and Marbella back to back in spring on two different surfaces as well as Luxembourg indoors a week ago. The Belarusian owns eight career titles and produced the season’s longest winning streak at 12 matches (Miami, Marbella, one Fed Cup win).

In St. Petersburg, racquet rebel Marin Cilic claimed his first trophy since February 2010 as he beat Janko Tipsarevic 6-3, 3-6, 6-2 with his YouTek Radical MP. "It was a very good match at a high level," said Cilic. "I managed to push myself into a higher gear in the last set."

"I've been close in other finals this year and I learned from them. Today, that pushed me and in the third set, I played my best tennis of the season,” said Cilic who returned to the top 20 in the South African Airways ATP ranking and now stands 6-1 against the Serb who had won Moscow a week ago.