World No 8 Emma Navarro, the top seed at the Prudential Hong Kong Open, looked to be a shoe-in for the WTA 125 title, but she suffered a shock defeat that could severely dent her chances of qualifying for the WTA Finals in Riyadh, and it left the field wide open to allow Ajla Tomljanovic to lift the trophy at the inaugural event.
After a surprise loss to Zhang Shuai in her opening match at the WTA 1000 China Open, the American made the surprise decision to play in Hong Kong as a late wild-card entry, but she went down to 7th seed Anna Blinkova on Friday, the Russian prevailing, 6-4 6-3, in the quarter-finals.
Blinkova had beaten the returning Romanian former World No 1, Simona Halep, in her previous match, having headed into Hong Kong losing 10 straight matches, and 20 of her last 24 matches, which only highlights what a shock the result was.
Eight players will compete at the WTA Finals, but only the Top 7 in the WTA Race to Riyadh are guaranteed a place this year as Grand Slam champions are given a spot as long as they are ranked inside the Top 20, meaning that Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova is ensured a place despite sitting down at 12th.
Navarro, the US Open semi-finalist, is currently still clinging on to 7th place on the WTA Live Race with 3,568 points, but her spot is threatened by Zheng Qinwen, who sits in 8th position on 3,460 points.
Action at the Wuhan Open, the final WTA 1000 event of 2024, will likely play a key factor in qualification, and Navarro and Zheng look best placed to contend for the final automatic spot, with Danielle Collins, 9th in the race, having withdrawn from both Beijing and Wuhan, while Daria Kasatkina and Paula Badosa are potentially within striking distance.
World No 8 and top-seeded Emma Navarro fell in the quarter-finals and is battling to qualify for the WTA Finals
Meanwhile, Tomljanovic took down Blinkova in the Last 4, prevailing 6-4 2-6 6-3, to reach the final, where she needed 2 hours and 27 minutes to hold off Clara Tauson, the No 6 from Denmark, 4-6 6-4 6-4, on Sunday.
After a big-hitting battle, the Aussie now leads their head-to-head 2-1, and returns to the Top 100 after snapping her 12-month win-drought since her return after a knee injury kept her on the sidelines for much of 2023, which saw her ranking plummet well outside the Top 500.
In the humid conditions on Sunday, Tauson snatched the first set off the back of her only break of the match, which she won seemingly out of the blue at 5-4, after Tomljanovic went up 40-15 before a couple of errors and a couple of massive Danish winners flipped the script.
In the break between sets, Tomljanovic regrouped and made a slight adjustment, which seemed to make all the difference as she did not face a single break point in the second or third sets.
The 31-year-old, though, had to withstanding 12 aces from the 21-year-old Tauson, while they both had similar success rates behind their first and second serves, as well their returns, and they each held 5 break points in the clash.
The tight match, ultimately, came down to one extra break for Tomljanovic, which occurred at 3-3 in the third set, and the Aussie was never broken in the deciding frame, as she closed out her latest WTA 125 title.
The win sees her climb to No 86 in the rankings, the highest the Aussie has been since August 2023, which is just 2 places behind top-ranked Australia’s Arina Rodionova, who lost to Halep in the 1st-round.
This is Tomljanovic’s 2nd WTA title, having won her maiden 125 title in Florianópolis, Brazil, last November.
She next will play in the WTA 1000 event in Wuhan, China, her first match coming against Badosa, the World No 15 from Spain, on Tuesday afternoon.
Monica Niculescu & Elena-Gabriela Ruse claimed the doubles title, outlasting Nao Hibino & Makoto Ninomiya in the final
The all-Romanian pairing of Monica Niculescu & Elena-Gabriela Ruse claimed the doubles title, outlasting the Japanese duo of Nao Hibino & Makoto Ninomiya, 6-3 5-7 [10-5], in Sunday’s doubles final.
From a 5-5 deadlock in the decisive match tiebreak, Niculescu & Ruse swept the next 5 points to close out the win after 1 hour and 54 minutes of play.
It is Niculescu’s 3rd career WTA 125 doubles title, and the first WTA 125 doubles title for Ruse.
Niculescu is already a 12-time doubles champion at Hologic WTA Tour-level, while this week marks Ruse’s biggest career doubles title.
This was the first of two tournaments Hong Kong will host this month, with 2-time Grand Slam champion and former World No 2 Li Na serving as the tournament director of the WTA 250 Hong Kong Tennis Open, which begins on 28 October.
Clara Tauson snatched the first set but could not outpace Alta Tomljanovic in the Hong King 125 final
