By Adrianna Outlaw

(September 19, 2010) Jarmila Groth completed a week of dominance with her first career WTA Tour singles title. The top-seeded Groth swept Alla Kudryavtseva, 6-1, 6-4, to win the $220,000 Guangzhou International Women's Open in Guangzhou, China.

The 23-year-old Groth is the eighth first-time winner on the WTA Tour this year. The 55th-ranked Australian conceded the fewest games en route to her title (15) of any tournament winner so far this year. Next best was Maria Sharapova, who lost 21 games on her way to winning at Memphis in February.

The victory will vault Groth into the top 50 for the first time.

"I didn’t give a lot of chances to my opponents this week and I was able to take mine and close out matches. I will be top 50 now, which is really good, but hopefully I can get higher as the main goal is to be seeded for the Australian Open," Groth said.

Born in Slovakia, Groth became an Australian citizen in 2009. She married Australian Sam Groth in February last year and called her husband right after her title triumph.

"I rang my husband straight after the match, but there won’t be much time to celebrate, unfortunately," Groth said. "I have a 9 am flight to Seoul, where I play Nadia Petrova first round, so I’ll pretty much go back to the hotel and pack my bags!"

Kudryavtseva was also playing her first Tour final. Earlier this year she won her second doubles title, at ‘s-Hertogenbosch, partnering Anastasia Rodionova.

"I’m a little disappointed but she played great tennis throughout the whole week so congratulations to her," Kudryavtseva said." We were both here without coaches and actually warmed up together before the match. We rode here together, warmed up together, and are probably going to the airport together tomorrow as well. So it was funny and a great time. I’m pretty sure I’ll be coming back next year as I have a lot of points to defend now!"

Edina Gallovits and Sania Mirza joined forces to win the doubles title. It was Mirza's ninth career doubles crown.

"We played great together and it’s great to win another tournament," Mirza said."It’s tough to play players you haven’t faced before, so I think that’s why it took some time to get into the match, but once we did that I thought we felt very comfortable and were able to secure the win."