By Jeremy Harness

Angelique Kerber won the fourth tournament of her WTA career on Sunday afternoon, as the German dug down deep and came out victorious at the Bank of the West Classic at Stanford.

Her 6-3, 5-7 and 6-4 win over the Czech Republic’s Karolina Pliskova was the first win for Kerber in two years, and it was sweet redemption for her having lost in heartbreaking fashion in the final match in this tournament just last year.

The two players were dead even in first-serve points won, but Pliskova was victimized by 10 double faults, while Kerber only committed four of them.

Kerber won the first set by breaking Pliskova’s serve three times and taking advantage of four double faults by the Check native. Pliskova, however, rallied to win a hard-fought second set, which had proved throughout this tournament to be a catalyst for victory – just ask Alison Riske, who was beaten by Elina Svitolina in Friday’s quarterfinal match after taking the first set and losing the second set by a similar 7-5 count.

Kerber, on the other hand, would not suffer the same fate. She played the third set with purpose, and while Pliskova committed three double faults, she only committed one of them. She also won 75 percent of her first-serve points and, in the process, broke Pliskova’s serve three times.

In the doubles final, the Chinese duo of Yi-Fan Xu and Saisai Zheng blew out Spaniards Anabel Medina Garrigues and Arantxa Parra Santonja in straight sets, 6-1 and 6-3.

Xu and Zheng overcame three double faults by winning 24 of their 33 first-serve points and saving three of their four break points. Meanwhile, they broke the serve of the Spanish pair five times throughout the match.

The Chinese duo set the tone early in the first set by winning an astounding 10 of 11 first-serve points while breaking the Spanish three times and not committing a single double fault. Things did not change very much in the second set, even though Xu and Zheng did commit three double faults.

They won 63 percent of their first-serve points in the final set while Medina Garrigues and Parra Santonja only won 50 percent of them.