Marina Erakovic is singlehandedly trying to put New Zealand tennis on the map.
Erakovic defeated Sabine Lisicki of Germany 6-0, ret. on Satueday night in the finals of the 2013 U,S. National Indoors Championships, held at the Racquet Club of Memphis.
The consistent right-hander became the first player from New Zealand to win a WTA title since Belinda Cordwell won an event in Singapore in 1989.
For Erakovic, it was a long time in coming, but she felt bad that Lisicki couldn't finish the match because of illness.
"This is my first title and unfortunately it did go like this," she said. "But Sabine congratulations .... I hope we really do play a lot more finals in the future."
Lisicki felt bad as well.
"I'm sorry that I wasn't able to finish the match," she said. "I was sick the last few days... I just couldn't do better today. Marina played a great match."
Erakovic has been the most consistent women's player all week, and she also had a huge win over defending champion Sofia Arvidsson in the second round.
The doubles final was also contested on Saturday night and that was won by Kristina Mladenovic and Galina Voskoboeva who defeated the Swedish team of Arvidsson and Johanna Larsson.
This was the final year for the women's event in Memphis it will be moving to South America starting in 2014.
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