How crepes powered Sloane Stephens to Saint-Malo crown

WATCH: Sloane Stephens dishes with Prakash Amritraj after her first-round win in Rome.

She's a crepe queen. Sloane Stephens' title run in Saint-Malo last week was powered by local cuisine.

After an up-and-down start to the 2023 season, the 2017 US Open champion won five straight matches to win her first career WTA 125 title, just the second time this year that she won back-to-back matches. After running her winning to six matches with an opening win over Nadia Podoroska Wednesday in Rome, Stephens joined Prakash Amritraj at the Tennis Channel desk to dish about her favorite part of an earlier-then-expected trip to France.

Spoiler: It wasn't winning the trophy. (Though, that was a close second.)

"The food was the best part of the trip," Stephens gushed. "The tennis was good, but the food ... Going into Saint-Malo, I was like, 'I'm just going to make it through this week, and I'm going to have a crepe every single day, because that's what's going to get me through and make me happy.'

"We had a crepe pretty much every single day, and it worked. Everyone was happy, and I probably shouldn't have a crepe for, like, a year, but that's OK."

Lauding clay as "[her] favorite surface," and owing to the now-extended two-week status of both Madrid and Rome, Stephens said taking a gamble to play in the historic French port city paid off. (Saint-Malo began as an ITF women's event in 1996, but was upgraded to WTA 125 status two years ago. She had never previously played it.)

After losing a three-setter the first round of the Mutua Madrid Open to Romania's Jaqueline Cristian, Stephens took a last-minute wild card into the event, where she was the top seed at her then-ranking of No. 48. She lost one set on the way to the title, beating Belgium's Greet Minnen in the final; in the semifinals, she also scored a 7-5, 7-6(5) win over the returning Elina Svitolina in the semifinals in a match of former Top 10 players.

"After I lost in Madrid, I was contemplating literally everything," she said. "I was like, 'OK, what am I going to do? I have 10 days, the schedule's longer; what happens now?' I just decided to go and play and see what happens. Where I was after Madrid is much different than I am now, so I'm happy with that."

Back to No. 36 in the rankings this week, Stephens is eyeing a deep run in Rome to put her within the Top 32 seeds at Roland Garros, where she's defending a quarterfinal result from 2022. Looking to extend her winning streak to seven, she'll face No. 14 seed Victoria Azarenka in the second round.