Ekaterina Alexandrova will defend her Libema Open title against fellow Russian and top seed Veronika Kudermetova after both reached the final on Saturday without dropping a set all week.
The No. 4-seeded Alexandrova defeated No. 7 Aliaksandra Sasnovich of Belarus 6-1, 7-6(1) by taking her break point chances, three of five. She denied all five for Sasnovich, who was playing her first semifinal of the year and first ever on grass.
Alexandrova will be playing for her fourth WTA singles title on Sunday. She beat Kudermetova in the semifinals last year en route to the title.
Kudermetova, a tournament top seed for the first time, knocked out unseeded Viktoria Hruncakova of Slovakia 6-3, 6-2.
Hruncakova couldn’t convert all six of her break chances, while Kudermetova took four of her five to make the difference.
Kudermetova won her only WTA singles title in 2021 at Charleston and has lost three finals since then, all of them last year. She’s ranked 14th, 12 spots higher than her Billie Jean King Cup teammate Alexandrova.
The men’s final pitches sixth-seeded Tallon Griekspoor of the Netherlands against Jordan Thompson of Australia.
Griekspoor put out Emil Ruusuvuori of Finland 6-4, 7-5, and Thompson took out countryman Rinky Hijikata 7-6(5), 6-3.
Griekspoor has reached the second ATP final of his career after winning in Pune in January, and Thompson has a chance to make up for his only other final appearance, here in 2019.
Comments
SHARE