With the Olympic Tennis Event on the near horizon, some players have been gaining valuable clay court match practice at the WTA 250 events in Hungary and Italy this week.
Every match is difficult on the level that we are playing here. Very happy that I managed to win all four matches [this week], because they all were very tough and against not the easiest opponents. Proud of myself and enjoyed every moment here.
Diana Shnaider
Budapest – Hungarian Grand Prix
Top-seeded Diana Shnaider of Russia advanced to the final of the Hungarian Grand Prix with a 6-3 6-3 win over Germany’s Eva Lys on Saturday in Budapest.
The 20-year old saved all 3 break points she faced and benefited from 4 double-faults by Lys to dispatch the German in 1 hour and 25 minutes.
Shnaider started this year ranked No 60, but she finds herself on the brink of the Top 25 after winning her first 2 WTA singles titles in 2024, having lifted the trophies on the hard courts of Hua Hin and the grass of Bad Homburg earlier this year.
If the Russian can capture the Budapest clay-court title on Sunday, she will become the youngest player to win WTA singles titles on all three surfaces in a single year since 19-year-old Caroline Wozniacki pulled off the feat in 2009, and joining Jasmine Paolini and Daria Kasatkina.
In Saturday’s first set, a fierce forehand winner gave Shnaider the first break for 3-2, and she eased to the one-set lead from there, and, aside from a lengthy game at 3-1 in the second, she had little trouble closing out the win to reach her 4th final of the year.
“Every match is difficult on the level that we are playing here,” Shnaider said after her win. “Very happy that I managed to win all four matches [this week], because they all were very tough and against not the easiest opponents. Proud of myself and enjoyed every moment here.”
Shnaider will bid for her third title of the year on Sunday when she faces unseeded Aliaksandra Sasnovich from Belarus, who rallied to a 6-3 3-6 7-5 win over Slovakia’s Anna Karolina Schmiedlova.
World No 134 Sasnovich had a tougher semi-final, overcoming 17 double-faults and bouncing back from a 2-5 deficit in the third set to outrun Schmiedlova after 2 hours and 46 minutes.
Despite winning the first set relatively handily on Saturday, Sasnovich faced break points in 10 of her first 11 service games, and was plagued by double-faults in the early stages of the decider as she fell behind.
The Belarusian, though, fired a forehand winner down the line to pull back on serve at 5-4, and she steered the match in her favour from there.
Serving for the match at 6-5, Sasnovich fired winners to erase 2 break points, and came out on top in a rally on her first match point to clinch the win, maintaining a dominant 7-1 head-to-head record over Schmiedlova.
“I was so upset when the score was 5-2 [down in the third set],” Sasnovich said following her come-back win. “I started to risk more, I started to play more relaxed, I think, like you saw. I tried to enjoy the game.”
For the 5th time in her career, Sasnovich is a win away from her first WTA singles title, having finished as the runner-up at 2015 Seoul, 2018 Brisbane, 2022 Melbourne Summer Set 2, and 2022 Cleveland.
Shnaider and Sasnovich have met once before, in Doha qualifying earlier this year, where the Russian romped to a 6-1 6-2 win.
Top-seed and defending champion Zheng Qinwen defeated Diane Parry to reach the Palermo Ladies Open final
WTAtennis.com
Palermo Ladies Open
Top-seed and defending champion Zheng Qinwen of China recorded a 7-5 6-4 semi-final win over Diane Parry, the No 4 seed from France to reach the final in Italy.
“Tonight I was more pumped than other matches,” Zheng said on court. “She played really well and she has a tough game. She has a really good touch on clay court. It’s not easy to play against her. She has a lot of change of rhythm, variation.”
In a rematch of their 3-set clash in the 2nd round of Palermo last year, Zheng dominated Parry behind her first serve to seal the win in 1 hour and 38 minutes.
The Chinese was broken just once in the match, and won over 85% of her first-serve points, 28 of 33, while she fired 25 winners to just 10 unforced errors in the encounter, and saved saved 3 of 4 break points.
Parry, who kept the match in balance behind 24 winners of her own, could not find a way through Zheng’s superior serving day, and only saved 2 of the 5 break points she faced, and won 69.4%, 25 of 36, of her first-serve points.
Looking to defend a title for the first time in her career, Zheng has not lost a set this week, posting wins over Sara Errani, Petra Martic, Jaqueline Cristian and Parry.
Zheng also is bidding to win her 3rd career title and first of the season when she meets Karolina Muchova, the No 2 seed from the Czech Republic, who defeated Romania’s Irina-Camelia Begu, 6-1 6-1, in her semi-final.
Muchova needed just 74 minutes to ease past Begu, and behind her 20 winners, the Czech powered through her service games and saved the sole break point she faced, while she broke Begu’s serve 5 times.
Palermo is Muchova’s 3rd tournament of the year, after wrist surgery left her side-lined since the US Open, and it is her first clay-court tournament since making the Roland Garros final last year.
The 27-year old is looking to win her 2nd title and first since 2019 Seoul, but she has not defeated a Top 10 player since taking down Aryna Sabalenka in the Cincinnati semi-finals.
Sunday’s final pits the top two seeds against each other for the second time in their careers.
Muchova won their first meeting in 3 sets on the clay in Madrid in 2022.
