Marta Kostyuk celebrates biggest title of career with back handspring

Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk celebrated the biggest title of her career with a backwards handspring as she defeated Mirra Andreeva to win the Madrid Open and her maiden WTA 1000 title.

Kostyuk, 23, won just her third career title with a 6-3 7-5 victory over the eighth seed Andreeva, and second title in a month after a WTA 250 in Rouen.

Kostyuk is a player who has always shown promise but will move to a career-high No 15 in the world on Monday after an impressive run in the Spanish capital.

After her backwards flip, Kostyuk also posed ⁠for photographs at the Caja ​Magica, with her two dogs and a “lucky” pair of men’s underwear.

“We have a tournament laundry service and sometimes the clothes get mixed up and last year we ended up ‌with this piece of underwear where ‌in it was written ‘Lucky Shorts’. So we kept it,” Kostyuk told Spanish broadcaster Movistar Plus.

”My coach Sandra (Zaniewska) kept it as a lucky charm. She drove ⁠to her father’s house just to pick it up before traveling here again for the tournament. And we made this promise that if I’d win we would bring the ‘Lucky Shorts’ for the photoshoot with the trophy.”

“This trophy tastes ‌like champagne, no doubt about it. Honestly, watching this tournament as a child and remembering all the people who’ve won it before me, I never thought this was possible, it’s amazing.

“It’s one of the toughest tournaments of the year, and everyone ‌plays so well, ​especially now. So it certainly ‌tastes good, but I just ​want to enjoy this today and that’s it.”

Andreeva cut a frustrated figure and later explained her emotions at her press conference. “Every time I lose, it’s like the end of the world to me,” she said. “Sometimes I see other players smile right after the matches they lost. I don’t understand how people do it. I wish I could do it. Every match that I lose is obviously very disappointing and very painful to me.”

Kostyuk took the first set with a single break of serve. The second set was a closer affair and both players broke each other twice before Kostyuk made another decisive break to edge ahead 6-5 and she closed out victory on her third match point.

Includes reporting from agencies