The ending season for Russian tennis players is turning out to be ambiguous: not everyone lived up to expectations, and some were very disappointing. And yet, one of the Russians will definitely play in the final of the WTA Final Tournament.

Veronika Kudermetova, paired with Elise Mertens, snatched victory on character!

Chance to Win

On November 7, in the semi-final match of the WTA Final Championship in Riyadh, the last Russian woman remaining in the fight, Veronika Kudermetova, played in doubles. After the unsuccessful performance of Mirra Andreeva and Diana Schneider, there were no other athletes left at the tournament in Saudi Arabia.

Kudermetova acted in tandem with Belgian Elise Mertens, and their rivals for reaching the final were Taylor Townsend from the USA and Katerina Sinyakova from the Czech Republic. The Czech-American duo finished first in Liesel Huber’s group with three wins in three matches. The Russian-Belgian pair in Martina Navratilova’s group took second place, losing in the preliminary round to Xie Shuwei from Taiwan and Elena Ostapenko from Latvia. At the same time, they managed to defeat the Italians Jasmine Paolini and Sara Errani, who received the first seed.

The Russian and Belgian were not favorites in the semi-final confrontation. They are lower in the rankings, performed worse in the group stage, and lost in the only head-to-head match. But when there are two steps to the title and one step to the final, is it worth focusing too much on these situations? The girls on both sides of the net had a real chance to win.

Bad start

The match began with Kudermetova serving and, admittedly, the start for the Russian-Belgian duo was not the most successful. Sinyakova and Townsend acted reliably at the reception. Then the opponents took a game to zero on the American’s serve. Only on Mertens’ serve did the Russian and her partner manage to win the first game in this confrontation. But what next?

On the second attempt, Kudermetova was able to take home her serve, although the fans did not have to rejoice for long. The rivals soon won another break point, and the score became very unpleasant for the Russian and her partner – 2:5. The girls fought and did not allow Sinyakova to serve for the game, but the American and Czech still took the opening set with a score of 6:4.

Veronika Kudermetova and Elise Mertens (below) / Photo: © Clicks Images / Contributor / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru

Effective point

The opponents again started the second game with a break, but the Americans Mertens and Kudermetova managed to win back on serve. This was followed by an exchange of won games at the reception, after which the Russian woman finally managed to take back her own serve. And then the Belgian won her serve to zero. The stubborn confrontation continued; Veronica and Elise were unable to take advantage of the chance and convert the set point at the reception, but they took theirs in the tiebreaker – 7:6.

And then came the championship tiebreaker, in which Sinyakova and Townsend surprisingly began to make a lot of mistakes. Not everything was perfect for Kudermetova either, but it was Veronica who put an effective end to this difficult confrontation. Now Veronica and Elise will play in the final, where their rivals will be Brazilian Luisa Stefani and Hungarian Timea Babos.