No. 7 seed Iga Swiatek and No. 16 Maja Chwalinska will meet in an all-Polish semifinal at the Wuhan Open in China.
In Friday’s quarterfinals, Swiatek stormed to a 6-4, 6-1 win over Ann Li in 93 minutes and Chwalinska outlasted Greece’s Maria Sakkari 6-0, 3-6, 7-5 in 2 hours and 35 minutes.
Unseeded Sonay Kartal of Great Britain will face Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko in the other semifinal at the WTA 1000 tournament after their upset wins on Friday.
Kartal needed just over two hours to complete a 6-2, 2-6, 6-4 victory against No. 5 Elina Svitolina of Ukraine, while Ostapenko was a 7-6 (6), 6-1 winner against No. 11 Diana Shnaider of Russia in 1 hour and 45 minutes.
Swiatek reached another milestone ahead of her first-ever meeting with Chwalinska. She became the fourth player since 2009, and the only active player, to reach the semifinals at all 10 current WTA 1000 events.
Swiatek and Chwalinska were once doubles partners in the junior ranks.
“It’s great that we have two Polish players in the semifinals. I think it means a lot to Polish tennis,” Swiatek said in her on-court interview. “So hopefully it’s going to be a nice match. I’m really happy for Maja. She for sure improved her game this year, so I’ll be looking forward to the match.”
This is just the second time since the Wuhan Open’s inception in 2014 that two players from the same nation will square off in the semifinals. China’s Qinwen Zheng and Xinyu Wang met in 2024.
“I feel like I know her forever,” Chwalinska said. “Because basically we started playing tournaments together. It would be amazing, really. I think it would be great for us, and great for Polish tennis as well. It would be a great honor for me also, because she’s such a great champion. She’s done almost everything in our sport, so it would be a great privilege to play.”
Chwalinska, this year’s French Open runner-up, broke Sakkari’s serve for the fourth time to finish their match. Sakkari racked up more winners (37-25) but also more unforced errors (35-23).
Kartal capped her thrilling upset of Svitolina with a service break in the final game. It was just her second career win against a top-10 opponent and sent her into just her second WTA Tour semifinal.
Ostapenko overcame a 5-2 deficit in the opening set and compiled a lopsided 32-8 advantage in winners to take down Shnaider, who won only 35% of the points (8 of 23) on her second serve.
–Field Level Media
