Top seed Vera Zvonareva came back from the brink of defeat to win the Cellular South Cup and end Lisa Raymond's two-year domination of the tournament. Zvonareva saved three championship points and came back from 5-2 down in the third set before winning 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 in 2 hours, 22 minutes.

Two years after making her professional debut in Memphis, Zvonareva returned to the Racquet Club to capture her second WTA Tour title and ending Lisa Raymond's 11-match unbeaten run in the tournament.

The 19-year-old Russian, who is expected to move to a career-high No. 11 in the WTA Tour rankings when they are released on Monday, added the Memphis title to her only previous crown in Bol.

"Obviously, I'm very excited to win this, especially because I saved three match points," said Zvonareva. "Lisa is an extremely tough opponent, and I'm so happy that I was able to pull it out. I just didn't give up and kept playing my game and going for my shots. This is definitely a great win for me."

The top two seeds had made light work of their opponents en route to the final, with Zvonareva not dropping a set in victories over Tathiana Garbin, Gisela Dulko and Maria Sharapova, while Raymond lost just one set in her quarterfinal win against Lindsay Lee Waters.

And it was Raymond who made the first move, breaking Zvonareva for the second time to take the first set 6-4. But the teenage Russian recovered from that disappointment to take the second by the same score.

Match points

With game after game going to deuce, Raymond forged out a 5-2 lead in the deciding set and held two match points on Zvonareva's serve. But the Russian produced a winning backhand pass from Raymond's sliced approach and saved the second with a deep groundstroke.

Raymond then served for her third consecutive championship but Zvonareva came up with the goods to get back on terms. At 4-5, Raymond was handed another match point after an overrule by the umpire, but despite the confusion, Zvonareva held strong and hit a winning drive volley into the open court to get back to deuce.

After breaking for the second time in a row, Zvonareva completed her comeback when Raymond hit a groundstroke beyond the baseline to hand the Russian victory.

Of her three match points, a disappointed Raymond said: "I think it was just a case of not taking my opportunities. I was just safe on those match points, and I just made errors and made errors because my feet weren't moving and I got a little nervous rather than just saying 'Go for it.'

"I think the consolation is that we both fought our butts off out there. We left it all out there and I don't think there was a game where we didn't try 150 percent. When you play in front of a crowd like that it just fires you up even more. It's like I said in my speech, I just love playing here and I'm really disappointed not to come out with that third win."