Sherif drops one set in five matches, wins Iasi over Badosa

One. That is how many sets Mayar Sherif dropped across five matches to win Iasi. Ranked 73, the 30 year old beat Paula Badosa 6-4, 4-0 in the final, Badosa retiring at 4-0 in the second set, for her third career title.

Across the week Sherif conceded one set, the second set of her quarterfinal against ninth seed Yulia Putintseva, 3-6, sandwiched between two sets she won 6-2 and 7-6(5). In the final she won 71 percent of games, ten of fourteen, against Badosa: 75 percent of first serves in against 63 percent, 58 percent of first-serve points won against 38 percent, 60 percent of total points won, 52 of 86.

The first set went through five breaks of serve: Sherif to 2-1, Badosa levelling for 2-2, Sherif to 3-2, Badosa back again to 3-3, then Sherif ahead 4-3 and serving it out 6-4. The second set had no such back and forth: Sherif broke to open it, broke again for 3-0, and led 4-0 when Badosa retired. Her toughest match of the week had come two rounds earlier, that 6-2, 3-6, 7-6(5) quarterfinal against Putintseva; the semifinal against third seed Oleksandra Oliynykova was routine by comparison, 6-3, 6-1.

The title is Sherif's third on tour, after Parma in 2022 and the Buenos Aires 125 in 2024. It evens her head-to-head with Badosa at 1-1: their only previous meeting was a 6-3, 6-1 loss for Sherif at Charleston in 2023. At 30 and ranked 73, with a season record of 6-3, Iasi is her only title of 2026 so far.

Match tale, 20 July 2026, sources: Iasi, api-tennis