Joint's dream week in Rabat ends with two titles

Maya Joint will always remember Rabat. 

Twenty-four hours after winning the first Hologic WTA Tour doubles title of her career alongside Oksana Kalashnikova, the 19-year-old defeated Jaqueline Cristian on Saturday 6-3, 6-2 to add a first tour-level singles crown to her mantlepiece.

Joint, who this time last year was ranked outside the Top 200 and had yet to officially turn professional, is the second player in as many weeks to capture both the singles and doubles titles at the same event, following Jasmine Paolini's dual WTA 1000 triumph on home soil at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia. She lost just one set throughout the week -- the first that she and Kalashnikova played against Americans Jessie Aney and Jessica Failla -- and came through a singles final that would guarantee a first-time champion against Cristian in 1 hour and 20 minutes.

"It must be something about Morocco," Joint said afterwards, adding that, "I think conditions today really tested both of us; it was a lot different than the rest of the week."

Facing Cristian for the first time, Joint came from a break down twice in a match between two players separated only by four spots in the PIF WTA Rankings. Against a player seven years her senior, Joint trailed 2-1 and 3-2 early on, but won four straight games to turn the opener around, and then denied Cristian two game points before breaking serve for a fourth straight time at 1-1 in the second set.

The Romanian, contesting her second career WTA singles final but first in four years, made 36 unforced errors in defeat, and never had a break point in the second set.

Joint and Kalashnikova had previously teamed to beat Italians Angelica Moratelli and Camilla Rosatello on Friday, 6-3, 7-5. While it was also Joint's first-ever tour-level doubles final, it was the 31-year-old Georgian's 14th, and she leveled her career record in finals to 7-7 with the win.

Joint will take her five-match clay-court winning streak into her Roland Garros main-draw debut, where she will get a rematch against her compatriot Ajla Tomljanovic. The two played in the semifinals in Morocco on Thursday, with Joint winning the first set 6-4 before Tomljanovic retired due to an abdominal strain.