Washington, July 27 Leylah Fernandez battled all the way back to pull off a gruelling, three-tiebreak victory and reach her first final in over a year, beating No. 3 seed Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan 6-7(2), 7-6(3), 7-6(3) in a 3-hour and 12-minute contest at Washington Open.
Rybakina had not lost serve through 7-6(2), 5-4, where she served for the match. Naturally, Fernandez had her exactly where she wanted her. Staring down a match game at 5-4 in the second set, Fernandez's cracking returns helped the Canadian earn her first service break of the day when she needed it most.
Once the third set hit, Fernandez was the sturdier player in rallies down the stretch. Bolstered by her never-say-die attitude, these returns and rally groundstrokes could lead Fernandez to her fourth career title, and her first since 2023 Hong Kong. All of her three career WTA singles titles have come on hard court, WTA reports.
Fernandez will next face Anna Kalinskaya, who eased past 2021 US Open champion Emma Raducanu 6-4, 6-3 in the day's second semifinal.
DC Open is arguably Kalinskaya's best stop on tour. She holds a 9-2 main-draw win-loss record at the event and has never lost before the quarterfinals here, including a semifinal showing in 2019 as a qualifier ranked No. 160.
Kalinskaya went one further this year and is into her second career WTA singles final, following WTA 1000 Dubai and WTA 500 Berlin, both last year. After narrow losses in both of those finals, she has another opportunity to join the club of WTA singles titlists, according to WTA stats.
The summit clash is a huge chance for World No. 36 Fernandez and World No. 48 Kalinskaya, both of whom have previously been ranked inside the Top 20. This WTA 500 trophy would be the biggest career title for either of them -- in fact, Kalinskaya has yet to win a WTA singles title at all.
Fernandez narrowly defeated Kalinskaya in their only previous meeting, which was over four years ago. On the hard courts of Guadalajara in 2021, Fernandez squeaked past Kalinskaya 7-5, 4-6, 6-4.
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