Bad Homburg (Germany), June 26: Angelique Kerber defeated Katerina Siniakova in straight sets on Saturday to win the inaugural Bad Homburg Open and end her three-year wait for a title.
The number four seed, whose last tournament triumph was at Wimbledon in 2018, prevailed 6-3 6-2 on home soil in a time of one hour and 25 minutes for her 13th career WTA singles crown.
Kerber overcame Amanda Anisimova and top seed Petra Kvitova on Friday to reach her first final in two years but took time to get going against Siniakova, who won her only two career titles in 2017.
Siniakova broke Kerber's serve in the third game, only for the German to quickly respond by taking the next game as the pair continued to exchange blows.
World number 28 Kerber slowly found her rhythm and opened up a two-game lead at 5-3, but she had to save three break points before Siniakova fired into the net to concede the opening set.
The second set played out in a similar manner to begin with as Siniakova battled back after losing serve in the first game to level at 2-2 against her former world number one opponent.
But Kerber showed her quality by reeling off four games in a row and getting over the line with her third match point to add to her trophy collection.
The victory for the 33-year-old was her 75th on grass, which is the third most among active players behind Serena and Venus Williams.
Kerber is seeded 25th for Wimbledon and will face Nina Stojanovic in the first round next week.
"Everyone knows that I love to play on grass, I really feel well," she said in her on-court interview.
"I had some great matches. The goal was to have some good matches to prepare for Wimbledon. Let's see and hope I can continue this next week."