Camila Giorgi has always had a taste for doing things her own way. Blessed with natural power and extraordinary athleticism, the Italian goes hell-for-leather at her shots regardless of score or circumstance. At 29, she is still coached by her father Sergio, a colourful and sometimes controversial figure who has been at her side ever since she first picked up a racket as a five-year-old. She says she prefers fashion to sport, and it is no surprise that she has eschewed the big brands favoured by her peers, instead partnering with a Florentine fashion house to ensure that her attire is as stylish and distinctive as her game.
Giorgi’s singular approach hasn’t always reaped rewards commensurate with her talent, but things have changed for her this week at the WTA 1000 event in Montreal. Unseeded, ranked 71st in the world, and playing a more controlled brand of the high-risk, high-reward tennis that has been her calling card throughout her career, Giorgi claimed a trio of seeded scalps in the shape of Elise Mertens, Petra Kvitova and Coco Gauff to make the final. There, in the biggest match of her life, she defeated fourth seed Karolina Pliskova for the third time this summer, claiming the third and most significant title of her career with a 6-3, 7-5 victory.
It was a performance of courage, aggression and composure from Giorgi, who will now move into the top 35 for the first time in over two years. Her only lapse of focus came when she uncharacteristically hurled her racket across the court in anger after a miss early in the second set. Even in victory she wavered only momentarily, quickly recovering her equanimity after the briefest suggestion of a tear.
“I was very emotional inside,” insisted Giorgi, who becomes only the second woman to win a WTA 1000 title, after Flavia Pennetta’s victory at Indian Wells in 2014.
“I’m not the one that shows a lot. [But] it’s just amazing. I’m very happy for what I did this week. This comes with all the work I have been doing with my father. Of course, he’s my coach. So I think [it’s down to] all the work we’ve been putting together through all these years. One day, I was sure and he was sure that [results like this] can come in many periods, because I was playing very good actually. I was playing a very high level already, a few months ago. I think I was just believing in myself.”
Belief has been an equally central theme in Pliskova’s summer. No sooner had she lost the Wimbledon final to Ashleigh Barty last month than she was looking ahead to the US hard court swing, and the possibility of another successful run at the US Open, where she was a finalist in 2016. That could still happen for the Czech, who offered another reminder of her enduring quality with her semi-final victory over top seed Aryna Sabalenka in Montreal. Yet Pliskova, who will rise to world No 4 despite this defeat, will need to find her best when it really matters if she is to build on her renaissance as a grand slam contender.
This was her third successive defeat in a final this season. With the Czech lacking the commanding aura she had shown against Sabalenka, it was the relatively inexperienced Giorgi who handled the occasion the better of the two, returning with greater aggression and consistency and dominating the longer baseline exchanges. All the same, Pliskova, who made 34 unforced errors and was broken four times, can reflect with satisfaction on her rise in the rankings, having fallen out of the top 10 for the first time in five years just before Wimbledon.
“I think I’m doing quite well now,” said Pliskova, who has won 12 of her past 15 matches. “Since the first final in Rome [where she lost 6-0, 6-0 to Iga Swiatek], I think my game really improved and I’m playing some good matches. Of course, it’s normal to lose sometimes. I would love to win all of my finals. [But] it’s not like it’s only in my hands; there is also somebody else [involved]. I’m playing really good players in the final.
“But I believe it’s not going to be that I will lose all of the finals. If I can make it every week to the finals, still I think it’s amazing. I think maybe it can be better sometimes that you are not, like, too flying after the finals. Now I can be more ready; [it] actually gives me more motivation to play in the next tournament.
“But anyway, there is Cincinnati, there is New York. I have plenty of tournaments to go this year. I’m just happy that my level kind of went back to where it was before the Covid break. I feel like I’m playing well now.”
Having been slow out of the blocks in the Rome and Wimbedon finals, Pliskova got off to the solid start she needed, serving well to save two break points in the third game before earning an opportunity of her own in the sixth. Giorgi’s response offered a hint of what was to come, however, the Italian moving brilliantly to reach three successive backhands that would have earned Pliskova the point against many players. The Czech seemed surprised by her opponent’s powers of retrieval, backpedalling fruitlessly as Giorgi got to an acutely angled ball that carried her wide of the net post.
With the danger averted, Giorgi showed steel to break in the next game, a nine-minute battle of wills in which she treated her opponent’s second serve with disdain. When Pliskova finally netted a backhand to fall behind, she furiously slammed her racket into the ground, earning a code violation. A second break followed at 3-5, a double fault at 15-30 proving costly for Pliskova, and by the time Giorgi held at the start of the second set, she had won five games in a row.
Another ill-timed double fault saw Pliskova broken again to fall 3-1 behind, but Giorgi immediately repaid the favour, throwing in two double faults from 15-30 to leave the players level on serve again. It looked like the cue for a Pliskova comeback, but it was not to be, the Czech sealing her own fate with another error-strewn game as she served to stay in the match at 5-6.
“I am very happy to have this gift,” said Giorgi. “I dedicate [the victory] to [my father], because I have this because he dedicated many hours with me. When you dedicate all your work, I think one day comes beautiful things, you know?”