Romp to victory a reward for Rubin's persistence

An African-American was the acclaimed winner of the Eastbourne women's tournament yesterday. No, not one of the Williams girls; this was Chanda Rubin, a judge's daughter from Louisiana who was around long before the Super Sisters came on the scene and, given her history, may well still be playing after Venus and Serena have departed with their millions.

Rubin is 26 and has been coming to Eastbourne for 10 years "because it's a pretty town and the weather is good for England". She was runner-up in 1995 and a semi-finalist on two other occasions, but she has suffered two major injuries in the past six years, to her right hand and left knee, so is eager for more tennis.

The 6-1 6-3 victory over Anastasia Myskina is only her fourth WTA tour title, and the first since Quebec City two years ago. After being told last January that she needed a second operation on the ailing knee ("my low point") she denied harbouring thoughts of retirement but admitted: "At times like that you certainly don't think about winning a title six months later." Rubin said she "definitely" found the Williams girls an inspiration.

"It is competition like that which forces you to get better," she explained. "Because if you don't improve you are going to get left behind. They are one and two in the world now, which I don't think anybody apart from their family thought was possible."

The Williamses, and many other top-ranking women, gave Eastbourne a miss in the run-up to Wimbledon (not the case in the days of Navratilova, Evert and Graf) but yesterday's final was entertaining, considering it was only the second in the 28-year history of the tournament to feature two unseeded players.

It ended with a one-sided scoreline because Myskina's accuracy deserted her after some hard, flat-hitting rallies and because, she said, she was tired and nursing torn ligaments in a racket-hand finger after a game of football.

The match was contested in a swirling wind, frequently the norm in this deck-chair capital of the world, which provided another excuse for the 20-year-old Russian.

For Myskina, who nurtures the dream of becoming more famous than Anna Kournikova, it was the second losing final in succession, having been beaten by Jelena Dokic at Birmingham last weekend.

As for Rubin, prospects are bright. Since coming back to the tour six weeks ago she has reached the Madrid final, and it needed Venus Williams to put her out of the French Open in the fourth round. While she played confidently, and well, yesterday, she also benefited from all the net cords that were going.

After Myskina won the opening game, the American swept the next six to go a set up with only 25 minutes played.

Myskina made a better fight of it in the second set, but once Rubin had broken serve for the fourth time in the match to go 4-2 ahead she upped the gears, and delivered a couple of aces. The second of these took her to match point and she rounded things off impressively with a firmly punched backhand volley. Just the sort of stuff to take her far at Wimbledon, in fact. "I haven't played my best tennis yet," she warned.