Maria Sharapova came out on top in the battle between the world's top two after convincingly defeating Victoria Azarenka in the final of the Porsche Grand Prix in Stuttgart.
The Russian won her first title of the year, while denying world number one Azarenka her fifth, with a 6-1 6-4 victory in one hour, 24 minutes.
Belarusian Azarenka, who had won 29 of her 30 matches in 2012 coming into the final, managed to fashion just one break point, which she failed to take, while Sharapova won three of the 11 she had.
The victory saw second seed Sharapova gain a measure of revenge for her defeats to Azarenka in the finals of the Australian Ope and Indian Wells this year.
Sharapova said: "This was such a tough tournament with such difficult opponents, so I'm just happy to be the champion.
"I came to Europe this year a bit earlier than I usually do. I added this to my schedule and was going to use it as a warm-up tournament for the claycourt season. But maybe I should start doing it every year since it's obviously working for me."
The beaten Azarenka added: "Obviously I'm not happy I lost in the final, but congratulations to Maria, she did a really good job this week. It was still a good week for me."
