World No. 1 and top seed Elena Rybakina will face Leylah Fernandez in the championship match of the BNB Ningbo Open after both players secured straight-set victories in the semifinals.
Rybakina advanced to her second consecutive Ningbo final by defeating sixth-seeded Diana Shnaider 6-3, 7-5 on Saturday. Meanwhile, Fernandez booked her spot in her second WTA Tour final of the season and the 10th of her career by overcoming Marie Bouzkova with an identical 6-3, 7-5 scoreline.
The singles final is scheduled to be played not before 5:00 p.m. local time, or 5:00 a.m. ET, on Saturday, Oct. 24. It will follow the doubles final, which is set for 2:30 p.m. local time, or 2:30 a.m. ET, featuring top seeds Nicole Melichar-Martinez and Cristina Bucsa against Fanny Stollar and Desirae Krawczyk.
The two finalists reached the championship match through very different paths on the court. Rybakina has spent significantly less time playing. After receiving a bye into the second round, her opening match lasted just 30 minutes when Polina Kudermetova retired while trailing 5-0 in the first set. She faced a tougher challenge in the quarterfinals, being pushed to a third set by qualifier Katarzyna Kawa. In her semifinal against Shnaider, the scoreline masked a battle that required Rybakina to capture 11 set points in the opener and recover after being broken to love while serving for the match in the second. She enters the final having dropped only one set all week.
Fernandez took a much more arduous route, logging nearly eight hours on court ahead of the semifinals by winning three consecutive three-setters against seventh-seeded Elise Mertens, Aliaksandra Sasnovich, and Ekaterina Alexandrova. She faced elimination against Mertens in the opening round, fighting back from a 5-3 deficit in the deciding set to win the final four games. Even her semifinal victory over Bouzkova stretched to nearly two hours despite ending in straight sets. Fernandez has built strong momentum during the Asian Swing, posting an 11-2 record.
A victory for Rybakina would make her a two-time champion at the same tournament for the second time this year, having previously achieved the feat in Stuttgart. It would mark her first successful defense of a tournament title in back-to-back years, yield her fourth title of the season, and bring her career total to 15. A win would also significantly boost her pursuit of securing the year-end No. 1 ranking. She is currently defending 500 ranking points as the tournament’s reigning champion.
For Fernandez, a win would deliver her second title in as many months following her triumph at the Singapore Tennis Open in September. It would mark her seventh career title and her third WTA 500 crown.
Rybakina holds a 3-2 lead in their head-to-head series. The pair split their first four encounters on hard courts, but Rybakina won their most recent meeting earlier this year on the clay of Stuttgart. That quarterfinal matchup was a three-hour epic that ended 6-7 (5), 6-4, 7-6 (6), with Rybakina saving two match points.
The winner in Ningbo will collect 500 ranking points and a prize of $185,500, while the runner-up will earn 325 ranking points and take home $114,500.
