Maria Camila Osorio Serrano Wins First Career WTA Title at Copa Colsanitas

It’s a homecoming to remember for Maria Camila Osorio Serrano

The 19-year-old Clombian tennis player completed her Cinderella run in front of her home crowd at the Copa Colsanitas in epic fashion, winning her first WTA title 5-7, 6-3, 6-4 over No.5 seed Tamara Zidansek.

Maria Camila Osorio Serrano

“It’s been an unreal week for me,” Osorio Serrano said after her win. “I still cannot believe that I won the title.”

At two hours and 48 minutes, it was easily the longest final of the season, 40 minutes over the previous benchmark set by Daria Kasatkina‘s victory over Marie Bouzkova to take the Phillip Island Trophy.

“I played a really great match against Tamara, and I didn’t know how I turned the match,” said Osorio Serrano. “I lost the first set and I was a little bit tight, so I still cannot believe I won.”

World No.180 Osorio Serrano becomes the lowest-ranked WTA title winner since World No. 299 Margarita Gasparyan won Tashkent 2018.

The former junior World No.1 and 2019 US Open girls’ champion is the fourth teenage titlist on tour in 2021 following Iga Swiatek in Adelaide, Clara Tauson in Lyon and Leylah Fernandez in Monterrey.

She’s also the third Colombian to capture the Bogota title in the tournament’s 23-year history, joining four-time champion Fabiola Zuluaga (1999, 2002-04) and 2010 winner Mariana Duque-Mariño on the roll of honour.

“With this tournament, my calendar is going to be more open, I’ll have more options to play bigger tournaments, so I’m super, super happy with this win,” Osorio Serrano said. “And of course that I’m home, with my family, with my friends, with my fans from Colombia. ”

“That was my dream, and kind of a goal, to win the tournament,” Osorio Serrano added.

Osorio Serrano’s last appearance in Bogota had been a significant breakthrough – as a wildcard ranked World No.438, she reached the 2019 quarterfinals, where she lost a high-quality three-setter to eventual champion Amanda Anisimova. This year, playing just her fourth WTA main draw, Osorio Serrano’s talent was on display as she made the final without dropping a set.

Maria Camila Osorio Serrano Reaches First-Ever WTA Final

Maria Camila Osorio Serrano is thisclose to claiming her first WTA title.

The 19-year-old Colombian tennis player, the former junior World No.1, continues her Cinderella run on home soil in Bogota’s Copa Colsanitas.

Maria Camila Osorio Serrano

Osorio Serrano, a wildcard in this tournament has had a breakthrough run, which continued on Saturday with an emphatic 6-1, 6-2 semifinal victory over French qualifier Harmony Tan, putting her through to her first WTA singles final in just her fourth career WTA main draw appearance.

Her effort this week has seen her earn her first win against a Top 100 player, beating No.7 seed Tereza Martincova in the second round, before following that up with a victory over former Top 50 player Stefanie Voegele in the last eight. She has not dropped a set in four victories this week.

“I feel super happy to be in the final,” Osorio Serrano said after the match. “I was really hoping to be here and to play in the final. I really don’t feel any pressure and I feel like it’s an opportunity for me to enjoy, to play my best and to do what I’ve been doing the whole week.

“It’s my chance to show my tennis, show my best and I hope that I can play well in this final.”

After winning a nearly 15-minute game to begin the match, Osorio Serrano overwhelmed the French qualifier in the first five games to build a 5-0 lead. Contesting her sixth match of the week, Tan received a medical timeout at the ensuing changeover and saved the bagel, but never found a foothold in the match over the course of 85 minutes.

Though each player landed less than half of her first serves in the match, it was Osorio Serrano who proved all the more effective on return: in all, the wildcard broke serve seven times.

Currently ranked World No.180, Osorio Serrano is the lowest-ranked singles finalist on the WTA this year, and is the third player from her country to play for the title in Bogota. Fabiola Zuluaga won the event four times, in 1999 and 2002-04, and Mariana Duque-Mariño won her crown in 2010.

The former US Open junior champion will play No.5 seed Tamara Zidansek for the title.

At the event’s last staging in 2019, Osorio Serrano reached the quarterfinals as a wildcard before bowing out to eventual Amanda Anisimova in three sets. She and Zidansek, the lone seeded player among those to reach the quarterfinals this week, have never played.

“It would mean a lot to win my first WTA title because that’s what we’re working for,” Zidansek said. “I’ve won two WTA 125Ks, but I remember that feeling, how it felt. Going for my first WTA 250 title, winning that would be amazing.”

Maria Camila Osorio Serrano Becomes First Colombian to Win US Open Girls’ Singles Title

Maria Camila Osorio Serrano has saved the best for last…

Competing in her last Grand Slam as a junior at Flushing Meadows, the Colombian tennis player put forth a near-perfect performance to defeat American qualifier Alexandra Yepifanova, 6-1, 6-0, to claim her maiden Grand Slam title, while becoming the first Colombian to win the girls’ singles title at the US Open.

Maria Camila Osorio Serrano

“It’s unreal,” Osorio Serrano said told reporters after the match. “It’s been a really great week for me—I’m just so happy and thankful for this, I can’t believe I won.”

The No.4-seed was large and in charge from the start of Sunday’s final on Court 17, opening the match with an ace to serve notice that she wasn’t experiencing any fatigue from Saturday’s double-header in Queens. The same could not be said for Yepifanova, who struggled to find her footing after battling through two three-setters to reach the final on Saturday in New York.

Osorio Serrano would break for 2-0 in the opening set with a forehand volley winner into the open court that was met with a cacophony of cheers from a lively crowd of Colombian spectators.

Yepifanova broke in the third game with a crosscourt backhand winner to close to 2-1, but it would prove to be the only game she would win in the final. 

Osorio Serrano rolled through the next 10 games as the Colombians’ cheers from the bleachers inside Court 17 only grew louder.

Osorio Serrano won 60 of 93 points in the final and broke Yepifanova in all six of her service games.

“There was a lot of people from Colombia cheering for me,” Osorio Serrano said of the support she received all week from her fans. “I’m really thankful for this and I want to thank them because the whole week they have been supporting.”

Osorio Serrano, who’s coached by formerATPpro Alejandro Falla,  joins a select group of US Open girls’ singles champions that includes Victoria AzarenkaMarion Bartoli, Lindsay DavenportJennifer Capriatiand Amanda Anisimova.