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.
“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.