Andreeva Never Saw It Coming
Six games in the second set. That’s all it took for Leylah Fernandez to turn the Singapore Tennis Open on its head. The sixth seed dismantled top-seeded Mirra Andreeva 6-2, 7-5 in Friday’s quarterfinal, needing just 92 minutes to book her spot in the semifinals of the WTA 500 event.
Fernandez converted six of eleven break points against the 18-year-old Russian, closing out the match by breaking Andreeva’s serve one final time in the tenth game of the second set. The Canadian has built her career on exactly this kind of match: aggressive returns, flat groundstrokes, and a habit of refusing to let bigger names dictate the tempo. This is her third quarterfinal win over a top-two seed in the past thirteen months.
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A Semifinal Full of Surprises
Fernandez will face fifth seed Maja Chwalinska of Poland next, after the Pole needed only 89 minutes to see off fourth seed Elise Mertens of Belgium 6-2, 6-2. Neither semifinalist arrived in Singapore seeded above five, a sign of how open this draw has become since the top two names in the field, Andreeva and second seed Jasmine Paolini, both fell before the final four.
The bottom half of the bracket tells the same story. Unseeded Tatiana Prozorova outlasted China’s Xinyu Wang 3-6, 7-5, 6-4 in a match that stretched past three hours, while Talia Gibson of Australia eliminated seventh seed Maria Sakkari 6-1, 4-6, 6-2 in just under two. Sakkari, a former world number three, has now lost in the quarterfinals or earlier in eight of her last ten tournaments.
With two unseeded players and two players seeded fourth or lower reaching the final four, Sunday’s final is guaranteed to produce a first-time Singapore champion.
Rain Delays Seoul
Singapore wasn’t the only WTA stop making news Friday. In Seoul, rain suspended the Korea Open quarterfinals before a single match could finish. Second seed Kimberly Birrell of Australia had to pause her match against Katie Volynets while leading 2-6, 6-2, 4-2, with play now pushed to Saturday alongside three other unfinished quarterfinals: Lanlana Tararudee against Maya Joint, Elena-Gabriela Ruse against Anna Bondar, and Taylah Preston against Alina Korneeva.
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