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The 31-year-old Hungarian, who had expected to arrive in Auckland and play qualifiers before a raft of withdrawals promoted her into the main draw, had earlier knocked out three other seeded players on her way to the final.
She beat eighth seed Sofia Arvidsson then caused the upset of the tournament when she easily accounted for former world number one Maria Sharapova in the quarter-finals before beating fourth seed Julia Goerges to earn a place in the final.
The world number 88 was steady rather than explosive and helped by Wickmayer’s numerous unforced errors throughout the match, though she faced a severe attack of nerves when she was serving for the title.
She went 0-30 down and served two double faults during the game, including one on match point, but managed to overcome them.
“When I had the match point and I did a double fault, (I) was shaking,” she told reporters. “I told myself just hit it. If it’s in, it’s in, if it’s out’ it’s going to be out anyway, so just hit it.”
Arn, whose previous other WTA tour title was at Estoril, Portugal, in 2007, said the victory in Auckland was a “dream come true.” “The feeling, I couldn’t believe it, I cannot describe it. “That’s what you’ve wanted and you’ve got it.” Wickmayer, who had not dropped a set on her way to the title last year, had three three-setters this week, against former world number one Dinara Safina, Sabine Lisicki and against China’s Peng Shuai, with the semi-final against the Chinese on Friday lasting almost three hours.
“I had to come back a lot of times and I had to fight though a lot of difficult moments,” Belgian Wickmayer said.
“It makes it not easy to stay fit mentally.” Despite the defeat, Wickmayer was pleased with her performance during the week. “I had one bad day, but I had four really good ones, I beat four good players,” she said. “I guess today was not my day.”
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