Halep holds on for biggest win of career

Simona Halep claimed her first Indian Wells WTA title with a hard-fought 2-6, 7-5, 6-4 victory over the former world No 1 Jelena Jankovic in the BNP Paribas Open final on Sunday, giving the Romanian the biggest title of her career and a WTA Tour-leading third tournament victory of the year.

These two WTA stars have gone to three sets in all five of their meetings and two of them could easily have gone the other way - Jankovic had match points in two of Halep's three wins.

World No 3 Halep, now Romania's highest ranked felmale player ever, won four of the final five games to earn the marathon victory in 2 hrs, 37 min. But both players had difficulty holding their serves throughout as there were a total of 18 breaks.