Veni, Vidi, Vinci: Roberta Vinci Wins Third WTA Title of 2011 in Budapest

The player who has won the most singles titles on the WTA Tour in 2011 thus far is No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki, with five.  She's the No. 1 player, so her place atop this category makes sense.

In second place is recent Wimbledon champion and current WTA No. 7 Petra Kvitova, who has four singles titles this year. Given her enormous successes and rise to prominence recently, this hardly can be seen as shocking either.

But third place on this list belongs to a player considerably further down on the rankings, and considerably further from the spotlight.  Roberta Vinci, the third-highest ranked Italian in the WTA, claimed her third singles title of the year Sunday in Budapest, beating Irina-Camelia Begu 6-4, 1-6, 6-4 in the final.  The win puts Vinci at a career high ranking of No. 22, still well behind most every other titlist this year.

Counting both singles and doubles titles, Vinci is tied with Wozniacki for first in WTA titles this year, with two doubles titles thus far in 2011 (Hobart and Pattaya City).  Since those two doubles titles came on hard courts, Vinci can claim titles on all three outdoor surfaces this year.

Though Vinci was the top seed in Budapest, her road to the title was far from straightforward.  She was two points from losing to Hungarian wild card Timea Babos in the second round, saved two match points against Zuzana Kucova in the quarterfinal, and trailed Begu 4-2 in the third set of the final before reeling off the last four games.

Though she came up short in the final, Irina-Camelia Begu has also quietly put together an extremely impressive 2011 campaign as well. Ranked No. 198 at the beginning of the year, Begu has risen all the way to a career high of No. 60 in just six months.  She first broke through with a run to the final of Marbella in April, with wins over  and Budapest in July.  With so few points to defend in the left of the year, Begu seems more likely than not to break into the top 50 by year end.