By Field Level Media
Oct 31 (Field Level Media) – No. 3 seed Diana Shnaider of Russia and Canada’s Leylah Fernandez will meet Sunday in the final at the Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo.
Both players won big points down the stretch in Saturday’s semifinals, with Shnaider beating Slovakian teenager Mia Pohankova 6-4, 7-6 (7) and Fernandez taking down Uzbekistan’s Kamilla Rakhimova 7-5, 6-3.
Pohankova, 18, took a 6-5 lead in the second-set tiebreaker before Shnaider won four of the last five points to reach her first final of 2026. Shnaider saved five of six break points in the 1-hour, 46-minute match.
Fernandez overcame a 3-1 deficit in the first set and dropped the first two games of the second set before rallying past Rakhimova. Fernandez fired nine aces and advanced to her third final of 2026 in one hour and 54 minutes.
Guangzhou Open
Britain’s Harriet Dart and fourth-seeded Lilli Tagger of Austria took very different paths to reach Sunday’s final in China.
Dart rallied for a 5-7, 7-6 (1), 6-0 victory against 16-year-old Xinran Sun of China in two hours and 29 minutes, while Tagger needed just 52 minutes to complete a 6-2, 6-0 win over Spain’s Kaitlin Quevedo in the other semifinal.
Dart survived three match points in the 10th game of the second set before racing to a 5-0 lead in the tiebreaker and forcing a third set, where Sun’s game fell apart.
Tagger won all 19 points on her first serve, including five aces, and never faced a break point against Quevedo.
(–Field Level Media)
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