Strasbourg star Silvia Farina on her ‘magical’ hat-trick of titles

FIUMICINO, Italy – One of the most long-standing tournaments on the WTA Tour, the Internationaux de Strasbourg boasts former winners such as Stefanie Graf, Lindsay Davenport and Jennifer Capriati on its roll of honor.

But no player has as much of a tie to the event as Silvia Farina, who completed a consecutive hat-trick of titles in the French city, located near the German border and the site of the European Parliament, between 2001 and 2003.

Farina’s triptych of trophies, which she still displays proudly in the main room of her house in Fiumicino, near Rome, is a tournament record, held jointly with Anabel Medina Garrigues (champion in 2005, 2007 and 2008) – but they were all the more remarkable for their context in the Italian’s career. Having reached her first WTA final in San Marino in 1991 at the age of 19, Farina would lose that in an all-Italian affair to Katia Piccolini – and then, over the next decade, reach and lose a further six finals.

Still titleless at the age of 29, she returned to Strasbourg in 2001 for just the second time in her career – and proceeded to go on a 17-match winning streak there, only halted by Davenport in the 2004 semifinals. Along the way, Farina – then competing under her married name of Farina Elia – would defeat the likes of Anastasia Myskina, Nathalie Tauziat and Magdalena Maleeva – and each of her finals was a thrilling three-set victory over a sometime Top 20 player: Anke Huber in 2001, Jelena Dokic in 2002 and Karolina Sprem in 2003.

But Farina’s spell of invincibility almost never happened. In 2001, competing in Strasbourg was a last resort after a disappointing clay season that had not lived up to expectations after she had reached the Gold Coast final and Indian Wells quarterfinals earlier in the year. “I was so down mentally,” she recalls via Zoom.

“I came from a time when I was not winning a match, and I decided to go to Strasbourg alone, without my coach, to find a solution. To try to not have any kind of pressure from the outside.” It nearly didn’t pay off. In the first round, Farina – the No.8 seed – faced the Australian World No.75 Evie Dominikovic, whom she had dispatched 6-1, 6-3 in Indian Wells two months previously. On her preferred clay, though, things would not be so simple. “I was 0-5 down in the third set,” she says. “I was already in the shower. But I saved three match points. There was no magic: I still had to play every point after that. I somehow won – and match by match, I found a better feeling. I don’t know how come, because on the first day I was terrible!”

Farina’s desire to escape external pressure was no surprise. Between 1995 and 1999, she had…