No. 2 seed Jasmine Paolini of Italy rallied to reach the Ningbo Open semifinals with a marathon 5-7, 7-5, 6-3 victory Friday against sixth-seeded Swiss Belinda Bencic in Ningbo, China.
Paolini swung momentum in the three-hour, 22-minute clash with two service breaks in the 10th and final games of the second set. She saved 14 of 20 break points and advanced to face No. 3 Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan, who only needed 57 minutes to complete a 6-2, 6-0 defeat of Australia’s Ajla Tomljanovic.
The other semifinal at the WTA 500 event is an all-Russian matchup between No. 4 Ekaterina Alexandrova and No. 7 Diana Shnaider. Alexandrova dispatched American McCartney Kessler 6-3, 6-3 and Shnaider stormed back for a 2-6, 6-3, 6-1 triumph over China’s Lin Zhu in the other quarterfinal.
Japan Open
Top-seeded Naomi Osaka of Japan withdrew ahead of her quarterfinal match in Osaka with a left thigh injury, giving Romania’s Jaqueline Cristian a walkover win into the semifinals.
Osaka originally sustained the injury during a three-set, second-round win against Suzan Lamens of the Netherlands. The four-time Grand Slam winner was making her first WTA Tour appearance in Japan since 2022.
Cristian will face 18-year-old Czech Tereza Valentova, a 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 winner over No. 6 seed Olga Danilovic of Serbia. Meeting in Saturday’s other semifinal at the WTA 250 tourney will be No. 4 Leylah Fernandez of Canada and Sorana Cirstea of Romania. Fernandez defeated Slovakia’s Rebecca Sramkova 7-6 (2), 6-3 and Cirstea outlasted Switzerland’s Viktorija Golubic 6-2, 2-6, 6-2.
–Field Level Media
