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Sunday, October 26, 2025

Wk.44- Land of the Rising Bencic

Ten years after coming up short in the tournament's final, and four years after winning Olympic Gold there, Belinda Bencic scrapes the sky once again in Tokyo.








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*WEEK 44 CHAMPIONS*
TOKYO, JAPAN (WTA 500; Hard Court Outdoor)
S: Belinda Bencic/SUI def. Linda Noskova/CZE 6-2/6-3
D: Timea Babos/Luisa Stefani (HUN/BRA) def. Anna Danilina/Aleksandra Krunic (KAZ/SRB) 6-1/6-4
GUANGZHOU, CHINA (WTA 250; Hard Court Outdoor)
S: Ann Li/USA def. Lulu Sun/NZL 7-6(6)/6-2
D: Katarzyna Piter/Janice Tjen (POL/INA) def. Eudice Chong/Liang En-shuo (HKG/TPE) 3-6/6-3 [10-5]
Queretaro, Mexico (WTA 125; Red Clay Outdoor)
S: Sara Bejlek/CZE def. Katrina Scott/USA 6-2/6-1
D: Alicia Herrero Linana/Valeriya Strakhova (ESP/UKR) def. Marian Gomez Pezuela Cano/Varvara Lepchenko (MEX/USA) 7-5/6-2
Rovereto, Italy (WTA 125; Hard Court Indoor)
S: Oksana Selekhmeteva/RUS def. Lucrezia Stefanini/ITA 6-1/6-1
D: Jesika Maleckova/Miriam Skoch (CZE/CZE) def. Silvia Ambrosio/Aurora Zantedeschi (ITA/ITA) 6-0/4-6 [10-4]
Florianopolis, Brazil (WTA 125; Rec Clay Outdoor)
S: Julia Grabher/AUT def. Carole Monnet/FRA 3-6/6-4/6-0
D: Ekaterine Gorgodze/Irene Burillo Escorihuela (GEO/ESP) def. Carole Monnet/Sada Nahimana (FRA/BDI) 6-1/6-4




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PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Belinda Bencic/SUI
...though she surely has played the long game where her return to tennis after having a baby is concerned, Bencic has sprinkled some great results all across the year-long stretch since the motherhood era of her career kicked off last October.

After playing her last match before going on maternity leave in September 2023, Bencic delivered a baby girl in April '24. By late October of last year, she was back with racket in hand. After playing three events and a BJK Cup tie win, she ended her season in December with a 125 title run.

When she kicked off her '25 season (on December 28 & 29) at the United Cup in Week 1, Bencic was ranked #487. On December 30, the updated rankings release saw her at #489. With her title run this weekend in Tokyo, she'll be at #11 on Monday with a week remaining in the WTA "regular season," about 200 ranking points out of the Top 10.

Over the ten months in between, Bencic put up an early eyebrow-raiser, reaching the Round of 16 at the AO in her first major in a year and a half. A title run in Abu Dhabi came immediately afterward, then an Indian Wells QF. She reached the 4th Round on the clay in Madrid, then a slam SF on the Wimbledon grass. The Swiss' hardcourt summer was a slow one, but she's rebounded well during the Asian swing, putting up a 9-3 mark and over the past two weeks showing her resilience in a series of three-set, often three-hours long, matches.

In Tokyo, after a straight sets win over Varvara Gracheva, Bencic rallied from a set and 5-3 down vs. Karolina Muchova, saving a MP in the 3rd, then won another three-setter in the SF vs. Sofia Kenin. Against Linda Noskova in the final, Bencic's level of play was still rising as she had her easiest day of the week, winning 2 & 3 to claim career title #10.



Of course, even reaching double-digits in tour titles doesn't make this Bencic's most everlasting trip to Tokyo. That'd be 2021, when she won singles Gold and doubles Silver in the Olympics there.


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RISERS: Lulu Sun/NZL and Linda Noskova/CZE
...kudos to Sun for fairly well turning around a season-after campaign (she started '25 at 1-8) that looked like a disaster in the making as recently as this summer, when her Top 50 standing (largely attained because of her '25 Wimbledon QF) dissolved into thin air after SW19 and she'd dropped nearly 100 spots by the end of the U.S. Open, though it was in New York where she at least notched her first win in a major since her London run.

Since then, the New Zealander has gone a combined 15-3, winning a 125 title and reaching the semis at another, and then this week playing her way into a tour-level final (her first since Monterrey in August of last year) in Guangzhou after qualifying and then posting wins over Jessica Bouzas Maneiro, Wang Yafan, Caty McNally and Claire Liu. Sun couldn't complete a sweep of the week, losing the final to Ann Li, but her overall record this season now has a far more respectable look (she's 32-26) than seemed remotely possible a few months ago.

With a ranking of #116, though, after withdrawing from this coming week's tour-level event in Chennai after reaching the Guangzhou final, she's probably a good candidate to participate in several of the remaining late-year 125 challengers on the schedule in order to get her ranking in a better position for the start of the '26 season.



Meanwhile, when the U.S. Open ended, Noskova was ranked just inside the Top 30 after her 3rd Round run at Flushing Meadows was ended by countrywoman Karolina Muchova.

But the 20-year old Czech has been one of the big-time movers in the 4Q since the start of the Asian swing, during which she reached two finals (in Beijing and this week in Tokyo), surpassed Muchova as the CZE #1 and will be at a career-best #13 on Monday.

Noskova's Tokyo run was both a good and fortunate one, as she got a win over McCartney Kessler, but also a retirement from Anna Kalinskaya (after sweeping the first seven games of the match vs. the Hordette) in the QF and a SF walkover from Elena Rybakina (who'd already done all she came to town to do, but had to give a "reason" for an early exit -- she chose a back injury).

Noskova went on to come up short in the final vs. Belinda Bencic, a result which highlights one of the significant things missing (so far) from the Czech's climb up the rankings: titles. Noskova has reached three WTA singles finals this year, but wasn't able to win any of them.

She's now 1-5 in career tour-level finals, which is incidentally the same hard-luck career WTA final mark of the current CZE #2, Muchova.


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SURPRISE: Ann Li/USA
...somehow, maybe because she tends to get lost in the sea of U.S. women who've posted good results in recent years, it always feels "surprising" (even if it shouldn't) that Li has reached as many tour finals as she has since the start of the 2021 season. After this week's run, a title-winning one, in Guangzhou the 25-year old Pennsylvanian has reached six WTA singles finals these past five seasons.

Wins over Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva, Camila Osorio, Elisabetta Cocciaretto and Zhang Shuai pushed Li into her *third* final just this season (the six players with more all currently reside in the Top 10), which she won 7-6/6-2 over Lulu Sun to claim her second crown at tour level.

Li jumps all the way up to a career-best #33 and now looks like a decent bet to be seeded this January in Melbourne. She had her best career slam run the last time out, reaching the Round of 16 at the U.S. Open (helped along by an upset of fellow Week 44 champ Belinda Bencic in the 2nd Rd.).
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VETERAN: Julia Grabher/AUT
...Grabher's best season likely came in 2023, when she reached her career high ranking (#54), made her MD debut at three majors and reached her maiden tour-level final (Rabat). But that season ended late in the summer with a wrist injury that required surgery that kept her out for six months.

Ever since getting her bearings again after a spring '24 return, the now 29-year old Austrian has been putting up results with something of a vengeance on the challenger circuit. Since last September, she's reached seven ITF finals (winning four, including going 3-3 in '25 finals) and, with her title this weekend in Florianopolis, has matched her biggest career win with her second 125 crown. She's put up a career-high 57 match wins at all levels in 2025.

Over the past week in Florianopolis, Grabher defeated 15-year old Brazilian Nauhany Vitoria Leme da Silva (who last month in Sao Paulo became the first player born in 2010 to record a WTA MD match win) in a 3rd set TB, then followed up with additional victories over Sada Nahimana, Simona Waltert (a 125 champ last week) and Oleksanda Oliynykova (another 3rd set TB) to reach the final, where she handled Pastry Carole Monnet in another three-setter, winning the decider at love.

Grabher will return to the Top 100 on Monday.


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COMEBACKS: Victoria Mboko/CAN and Sofia Kenin/USA
...19-year old Mboko had quite the early season (on the challenger circuit) and summer (winning her maiden tour crown in Montreal), but has had some difficulty dealing with all the sudden change in recent months. She came into Tokyo on a four-match losing streak, having not won a match since her title-winning turn on home soil.

At the start of the week, Mboko has just slipped to CAN #2 thanks to Leylah Fernandez's title run last week in Osaka. The teenager will reclaim her top national spot after playing her way into the QF (just the second of her WTA career) with wins over countrywoman Bianca Andreescu and Eva Lys.

Mboko ultimately provided the final needed win for Elena Rybakina to qualify for the WTA Finals, falling in two sets to the Kazakh, but her own two-victory week will allow her to tick up one spot in the rankings to #22, setting a new career high.



Also in Tokyo, Kenin put on a semifinal run (just her second of the year, after her RU in Charleston) that accounts for her first multi-MD match winning event since the former RG finalist reached the 3rd Round in Paris this spring. Though she's managed to hang around in the Top 35 since April, she'd come into the week sporting a 3-8 mark in her last eleven contests.

Kenin posted wins over Moyuka Uchijima, Wakana Sonobe (the teenager took her to a 3rd set TB) and Ekaterina Alexandrova. To get her second '25 Top 10 win, Kenin had to save four MP against the Russian.


Kenin fell in the semis in another three-setter to Belinda Bencic, losing to the Swiss vet for the first time in three career meetings.

The week likely (you never know, with a lot of 125 events on the schedule, the end of the regular WTA season doesn't necessarily mean the end of the year for even some fairly highly-ranked players) will prevent Kenin, now 28-24 overall on the year, from having her third under-.500 win/loss season in the last four. She lost more than she won in both '22 and '24.
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FRESH FACES: Sara Bejlek/CZE and Oksana Selekhmeteva/RUS
...another week, another Crusher champion. Not Noskova, but Bejlek.

The 19-year old Czech became the first player to claim a third 125 title in '25, winning the inaugural Queretaro tournament in Mexico on Sunday.

#1-seed Bejlek got past the likes of Usue Arconada, Gabriela Lee, Selena Janicijevic and Martina Colmegna to reach the final, where she defeated Katrina Scott 2 & 1. Bejlek is on a 12-match undefeated run at the 125 challenger level, but -- memo to the WTA and others -- she does *not* have an active "12-match winning streak" because she gave her opponent a walkover in the Mallorca QF two weeks ago (interrupting what was a seven-match win streak).

The title run will lift #101 Bejlek back into the Top 100 to a new career high of #84. The Czech is now 11-3 in career pro finals, 4-0 in 125 events and 7-3 on the ITF circuit.



In Rovereto (ITA), 22-year old Hordette Selekhmeteva picked up her second 125 crown since the end of the U.S. Open, where she made her New York MD debut as a qualifier just two months ago.

Selekhmeteva notched wins over Barbora Palicova, Silvia Ambrosio, Anna-Lena Friedsam, Susan Bandecchi and Lucrezia Stefanini in a 6-1/6-1 final.

16-3 in her last nineteen matches, Selekhmeteva will make her Top 100 debut on Monday.


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ITF PLAYERS: Mimi Xu/GBR and Petra Marcinko/CRO
...in Wrexham (ENG), 18-year old Xu swept the singles and doubles titles in the week's $100K challenger there, defeating 16-year old fellow Brit Mika Stojsavljevic 6-3/7-5 in the final.

It's the second pro single title for Xu (she has six WD wins), who reached the Wimbledon junior singles final and AO semis last year.



In Tyler, Texas, 19-year old Marcinko improved to 9-1 in career ITF finals with 6-3/6-0 win in the $100K final over Mary Stoiana (a former NCAA #1 at Texas A&M). It's the Croatian's second $100K crown this year (w/ an August win in which she def. Janice Tjen in the final), and pairs with a July title in a 125 event.

A former junior slam champ ('22 AO), Marcinko's week made 2025 her first 50-win campaign as a pro. She'll rise to #116, just off her career high of #113.


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JUNIOR STAR: Jeline Vandromme/BEL
...as the season has worn on, the 17-year old Belgian has become quite the junior talking point. Since winning the pre-AO tune-up event in Traralgon, Vandromme has gone on to be crowned the U.S. Open girls' champ and claim four titles on the ITF pro curcuit, at one point reeling off 17 straight wins in challengers.

In Chengdu, the Waffle closed out her junior experience by winning the season-ending championship at the Junior Finals, going 5-0 on the week in both round robin and knock-out action. After a win over Hannah Klugman in the semis, Vandromme outlasted Kristina Penickova (who she'd also defeated in RR play) in a 4-6/7-6(5)/7-5 final.


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DOUBLES: Timea Babos/Luisa Stefani, HUN/BRA
...Babos & Stefani's title run in Tokyo has placed them square in the middle (on top, really, though not alone there) of the best season numbers posted by any doubles duos and/or players this season.

Playing in their second final in two weeks, and third this 4Q (after a win in Sao Paulo, and loss in Ningbo), the #4-seeded duo finished off the week with a 1 & 4 win in the title match over #3-seeds Anna Danilina (in her tour-leading eighth final) & Aleksandra Krunic. They'd previously won three MTBs en route to the final, defeating Mihalikova/Nicholls, Dabrowski/Kenin and #1-seeds Perez/Townsend.



The title ties both Babos (w/ career title #29) and Stefani (#13) for the tour individual season lead with four titles each, matching the '25 takes (so far) of Sara Errani, Jasmine Paolini, Erin Routliffe, Katerina Siniakova and Taylor Townsend, as well as equaling the WTA-best five finals (w/ identical 4-1 marks) of the Errani/Paolini combo.

Stefani has gone 10-1 in her last eleven tour finals over the past three years, winning the four titles with Babos, as well as half a dozen more with six different partners.
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WHEELCHAIR: Jiske Griffioen/NED
...with the Wheelchair Masters just around the corner in Huzhou (which will be played, oddly, on clay this year), the biggest event of the week was a Series 2 in Fleury les Aubrais (FRA).

40-year old world #8 Griffioen claimed the title with a 7-5/6-7(5)/6-4 win over 23-year old Dutch countrywoman Jinte Bos (#13), finally taking home her first singles title this season in her fifth '25 final appearance (third since the end of the U.S. Open). It's Griffioen's first singles crown on hard court since 2023.

Bos won the doubles alongside Marcarena Cabrillana.
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1. Tokyo QF - Belinda Bencic def. Karolina Muchova
...3-6/7-5/7-5. Bencic has been October's marathon woman, playing here in what was her third three-hour affair in four outings (she'd had none in '25 before this stretch).

The Swiss rallied from a set and 5-3 down vs. Muchova, while the Czech climbed out of a 0-3 hole in the 3rd to hold a MP on serve at 5-4. Bencic broke serve on her third BP in the game, then finished of a sweep off the final three games of the match.

It's Muchova's second match lost this season after holding a MP, just one off the season's most by a player in tour-level MD matches (3 by Sofia Kenin, who this week also *won* her third this year from MP *down*) in '25.


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2. Tokyo 2nd Rd. - Elena Rybakina def. Leylah Fernandez
...6-4/6-3. Needing two wins to qualify for the WTA Finals, Rybakina wasn't given a "gimme" to start, facing off with last weekend's Osaka champ Fernandez, who upset Rybakina this summer in Washington after the Kazakh led by a set and 5-3, and had won their last two meetings (w/ Cincinnnati '24).

Echoing their last match-up, Rybakina couldn't serve out the 1st set at 5-3, but this time broke the Canadian in the next game to take the opener. Up 3-0 in the 2nd, Rybakina later saved three BP to avoid going back on serve, taking a 4-1 lead and going on to win in straights.



One down, one to go.
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3. Tokyo QF - Elena Rybakina def. Victoria Mboko
...6-3/7-6(4). Two down, and no more to go (until she arrives in Riyadh).

Rybakina completed her October qualifying dash with a straight sets win over Mboko, climbing from #9 at the start of the week to #6 in the super-tight final Race standings in a matter of days. With a 9-2 Asian swing that ended with this match (her work complete, she withdrew before her SF match vs. Linda Noskova), Rybakina is set to play in her third straight WTA Finals.

She's gone 1-2 in both occasions in the WTAF, not yet having advanced out of round robin play.


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4. Tokyo QF - Sofia Kenin def. Ekaterina Alexandrova
...6-0/2-6/7-6(3). With contenders (including Tokyo finalists Bencic and Noskova) bunching up behind #10 Alexandrova just outside the Top 10, the Hordette had a 5-2 3rd set lead vs. Kenin in what will likely prove to be Alexandrova's final match of 2025, the best overall season of her career.

Not all things end well, though. Alexandrova failed to convert three MP in game 8, then a fourth (on serve) in game 9. Kenin put away a 7-3 TB win to advance.



Of course, it's always a "fun" practice to peruse the social media post threads after a match like this (or, really, almost any WTA match).

You know the drill: first you get the result, then a comment from a gambler who lost money on a bet who then accuses the losing player of match fixing, then is made fun of by another poster for betting on a player that they say is so "unreliable." The losing bettor then argues back about how no one asked them for a comment, then is joined in the mix by a third party who jumps in to say the person who made fun of the poor gambler who lost money of actually being a "loser" himself (only in life), and eventually insinuates that he should kill themself. Ah, the alternate "circle of life" of a WTA post-match.



And... scene.

Also of note: it's amusing to realize that if/when tennis is ever involved in a gambling scandal (see the NBA this week), the sport's powers that be and their enablers will surely remain silent when it is pointed out that the situation was entirely predictable since they've gotten into bed with the whole gambling apparatus and, quite frankly, more than deserve whatever bad one day comes from it all.
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5. Tokyo Final - Belinda Bencic def. Linda Noskova
...6-2/6-3. Ten years after she finished as the runner-up (to Aga Radwanska) in the tournament, Bencic finally becomes their fifth Swiss champion in Tokyo.

The other five Swiss winners were all named Martina, as in Hingis. The original Swiss Miss won in 1997, '99, '00, '02 and '07 (as was also a finalist in 1998, '01 and '06).

She was elsewhere this weekend, though...


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6. Guangzhou Final - Ann Li def. Lulu Sun
...7-6(6)/6-2. The Bannerettes' collective numbers just keep growing, as Li becomes the *eighth* different tour-level singles champion in 2025, matching the number of unique winners the group had last season, a total which had been the most by the U.S. in any year since 2000. The only nation to have more different winnners since (at least) 2007 was Russia's nine in 2010.

As for 2025, the eight different Bannerette winners doubles the total (4) from the nation (RUS) with second-most. No other nation has produced more than two this year.


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7. Tokyo 1st Rd. - Victoria Mboko def. Bianca Andreescu
...6-3/6-3. While Mboko lost the CAN #1 spot to Leylah Fernandez at the start of the week, with this loss Andreescu (10-12 in '25) falls from #172 to outside the Top 220.

With Leylah Fernandez's 2nd Round loss to Elena Rybakina, Mboko's time as the CAN #2 thus lasted just one week.


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8. Guangzhou Final - Katarzyna Piter/Janice Tjen def. Eudice Chong/Liang En-shuo
...3-6/6-3 [10-5]. Well, add another career milestone to Tjen's growing list of 2025 accomplishments, as the Indonesian's breakout campaign now includes her first career WTA doubles title.


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9. Tokyo 1st Rd. - Maya Joint def. Viktorija Golubic
...1-6/7-6(5)/6-2. The Aussie teenager came in having lost three of four, but rallied to a victory vs. the Swiss vet after trailing by a set and 4-2, then 5-3 in the 2nd set TB.

Come January, #32 Joint (the new AUS #1 as the week began, meaning Dasha Kasatkina won't end her first season under the Aussie flag as the national #1) is in line to be seeded at a major for the first time in her home slam.


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10. Rovereto 125 1st Rd. - Tyra Grant def. Maria Timofeeva
...6-3/6-3. You can't tell the WTA players (well, at least their nation of representation) without a program drawsheet.

The listing of this match-up would have looked quite different a few months ago, as Bannerette-turned-Italian Grant takes out Hordette-newly-officially-Uzbeki Timofeeva, who arrived just days after winning a $75K title in her final "flagless" event.


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11. Guangzhou 1st Rd. - Claire Liu def. Alex Eala
...2-6/6-4/6-4. Eala drops her fourth straight match. The Filipina's breakout season is ending rather quietly, as she's gone 7-6 since taking her biggest career title in the Guadalajara 125.
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12. Tokyo 2nd Rd. - Sofia Kenin def. Wakana Sonobe
...3-6/6-1/7-6(2). Having turned professional earlier this month, 17-year old Sonobe lost to Naomi Osaka a week earlier in Osaka, but notched her second career tour-level win in Tokyo with a 1st Round victory over Nikola Bartunkova.

She challenged Kenin for another, taking the 1st set and then forcing a deciding TB after saving a pair of MP on serve at 5-4 in the 3rd. Kenin prevailed, but Sonobe will be back.


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13. Tokyo 1st Rd. - Karolina Muchova def. Marketa Vondrousova
...6-2/1-0 ret. Vondrousova has completed just one match since her win over Elena Rybakina in the U.S. Open Round of 16, and has gone 0-2 (w/ both losses to Muchova) during the Asian swing.
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14. Florianopolis 125 SF - Julia Grabher def. Oleksandra Oliynykova
...3-6/7-6(4)/7-6(1). En route to the title, Grabher staged a 3rd set rally vs. Oliynykova, then had to fight the Ukrainian off down the stretch.

The Austrian had trailed 4-2, but then saw Oliynykova save one MP at 5-4, then two more from 40/15 down at 6-5. Grabher was broken and forced into a TB, which she finally won 7-1.
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15. $35K Brisbane AUS Final - Tian Fangran def. Katie Swan
...2–6/7–6(5)/6–1. The 2023 NCAA singles champ (w/ UCLA), Tian wins her fourth pro singles title, her first since the '23 season.


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16. $15K Monastir TUN Final - Ksenia Efremova def. Masha Lazarenko
...6–3/3–6/6–2. Having completed a J500 girls' sweep of the s/d titles in Osaka last month, 16-year old Efremova did the same in the $15K challenger in Monastir this week.

The Pastry reached the QF in this year's junior competition at the U.S. Open, and went 20-1 over the closing months of her '25 junior season from August through October, winning addtional titles in J300 and J200 events (along w/ the J500) during the stretch.


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HM- $15K Sharm El Sheikh EGY Final - Sun Xinran def. Valeriia Artemeva
...6-1/6-0. Meanwhile, 15-year old Sun becomes the youngest Chinese player to win a pro singles title, taking the crown with a dominant victory in the final in just her fourth pro event.


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1. $75K Hamburg GER Final - Erika Andreeva def. Kaitlin Quevedo
...6-4/6-2. While her sister Mirra saw her WTAF spot (in singles, but she's still qualified for doubles) slip away this week, Erika won the biggest title of her career in just her second event back after being out with a knee injury since June. She'd had to retire from a match vs. her sister in April due to her knee, then went 0-7 over the following two months before finally pulling herself off tour.

The 21-year old, who reached a pair of 125 finals in 2023 (but went 0-2), won her first singles title since 2021 and biggest ever (her previous three were all $15K events in 2020-21) with a straight sets wins over Spain's Quevedo.

Andreeva was ranked as high as #65 last fall, but came into the week at #334. She'll climb to #264 after (so far) playing just 28 matches in 2025 (going 9-19).


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2. $15K Hilton Head Island USA Final - Kennedy Drenser-Hagmann def. Annika Penickova
...6-1/2-6/6-4. In a match-up of 16-year old Bannerettes, Drenser-Hagmann wins the title in her first pro event appearance, qualifying and sweeping through the main draw for seven straight victories.
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Something that persists to this day, Gene Simmons *always* -- sometimes even when still in costume -- took himself and the oft-kitschy business of Kiss *so* seriously. Ace Frehley did not, most famously so (assuredly with a little "help" -- cough, cough -- before the cameras rolled) in the band's late night Halloween interview with Tom Snyder at the height of their popularity.



Those moments were also an early sign of how/why Simmons and Paul Stanley would later push Frehley and Peter Criss (also enjoying the moment w/ Snyder) out of the band and run the whole operation as a two-headed enterprise, until a temporary original-4 reunion a decade and a half later.











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*WTA SINGLES TITLES in 2020s*
25 - 1/2/8/6/5/3 = Iga Swiatek
16 - 3/2/0/3/4/4 = Aryna Sabalenka
10 - 0/1/0/4/3/2 = Coco Gauff
9 - 1/0/1/2/3/2 = Elena Rybakina
8 - 1/5/2 = Ash Barty (ret.)
8 - 0/3/2/2/1/0 = Barbora Krejcikova
8 - 0/0/1/2/2/3 = Jessie Pegula
6 - 0/1/1/2/0/2 = BELINDA BENCIC
6 - 0/2/2/0/2/0 = Dasha Kasatkina
6 - 0/1/1/1/2/1 = Alona Ostapenko
[hard court]
13 - Sabalenka (3/1/0/2/4/3)
13 - Swiatek (0/1/5/3/2/2)
8 - Gauff (0/0/0/4/3/1)
6 - Barty (1/3/2 ret)
5 - BENCIC (0/1/0/2/0/2)
5 - Fernandez (0/1/1/1/0/2)
5 - Kasatkina (0/2/2/0/1/0)
5 - Kontaveit (0/4/1/0 ret)
5 - Krejcikova (0/1/2/2/0/0)
5 - Pegula (0/0/1/2/1/1)
5 - Rybakina (1/0/0/1/2/1)

*MOST DIFFERENT U.S. CHAMPIONS in SEASON (since 1998)*
=1999 (8)=
S.Williams,V.Williams,Capriati,Davenport,Frazier,Morariu,Rubin,Seles
=2000 (8)=
S.Williams,V.Williams,Capriati,Davenport,Raymond,Rubin,Seles,Shaughnessy
=2024 (8)=
Gauff,Kessler,Navarro,Collins,Stephens,Keys,Stearns,Pegula
=2025 (8)=
Anisimova,Gauff,Jovic,Kessler,Keys,Li,Navarro,Pegula
=2001 (7)=
S.Williams,V.Williams,Capriati,Davenport,Seles,Shaughnessy,Tu
=2002 (7)=
S.Williams,V.Williams,Capriati,Craybas,Raymond,Rubin,Seles
=2016 (7)=
S.Williams,V.Williams,Falconi,Keys,McHale,Stephens,Vandeweghe

*MOST WTA FINALS in 2025*
8 - Aryna Sabalenka (4-4)
6 - Jessie Pegula (3-3)
5 - Amanda Anisimova (2-3)
4 - Iga Swiatek (3-1)
4 - Coco Gauff (2-2)
4 - Ekaterina Alexandrova (1-3)
3 - McCartney Kessler (2-1)
3 - Elise Mertens (2-1)
3 - ANN LI (1-2)
3 - LINDA NOSKOVA (0-3)

*2025 FINALISTS BY COUNTRY*
27 (14 wins) - USA (LI)
11 (5) - RUS
8 (4) - BLR
6 (2) - CZE (NOSKOVA)
5 (3) - POL
4 (2) - ROU
3 (3) - CAN
3 (2) - BEL,SUI(BENCIC)
3 (1) - COL,ITA,UKR
2 (2) - AUS,FRA,KAZ
2 (1) - DEN,LAT
2 (0) - JPN
1 (1) - GER
1 (0) - CHN,HUN,INA,NZL(SUN),PHI,SRB

*2025 QUALIFIERS IN FINALS*
Brisbane - Polina Kudermetova, RUS
Merida - Emiliana Arango, COL
Bogota - Katarzyna Kawa, POL
London - Tatjana Maria, GER - W
Rosmalen - Gabriela Ruse, ROU
Berlin - Wang Xinyu, CHN
Eastbourne - Alex Eala, PHI
Cleveland - Sorana Cirstea, ROU - W
Osaka - Tereza Valentova, CZE
Guangzhou - LULU SUN, NZL

*CAREER WTA FINALS - active*
83 - Venus Williams
55 - Caroline Wozniacki
41 - Victoria Azarenka
39 - Aryna Sabalenka
34 - Karolina Pliskova
30 - Iga Swiatek
22 - Elina Svitolina
21 - Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova
21 - Elena Rybakina
20 - BELINDA BENCIC
20 - Jessie Pegula

*2025 OLDEST WTA SF*
37 - Tatjana Maria, GER (Queen's)-W
36 - ZHANG SHUAI, CHN (Guangzhou)
35 - Sorana Cirstea, ROU (Osaka)
35 - Sorana Cirstea, ROU (Cleveland)-W
35 - Sorana Cirstea, ROU (Iasi)
34 - Irina-Camelia Begu, ROU (Iasi)-W

*2025 WTA DOUBLES TITLES*
4 - TIMEA BABOS, HUN
4 - Sara Errani, ITA
4 - Jasmine Paolini, ITA
4 - Erin Routliffe, NZL
4 - Katerina Siniakova, CZE
4 - LUISA STEFANI, BRA
4 - Taylor Townsend, USA

*CAREER WTA DOUBLES TITLES - active*
36 - Sara Errani
35 - Hsieh Su-Wei
33 - Latisha Chan
32 - Katerina Siniakova
30 - Bethanie Mattek-Sands
29 - TIMEA BABOS
29 - Kristina Mladenovic

*2025 LOW-RANKED WTA SEMIFINALISTS*
#550 Julieta Pareja/USA (Bogota)
#361 Lois Boisson/FRA (Roland Garros)
#228 Nikola Bartunkova/CZE (Guadalajara)
#223 Katarzyna Kawa/POL (Bogota)-RU
#223 CLAIRE LIU/USA (Guangzhou)
#214 Tiantsoa Sarah Rakotomanga Rajaonah/FRA (Sao Paulo)-W
#207 Kaja Juvan/SLO (Hamburg)
[WTA 125]
NR - Rajeshwaran Revathi/IND (Mumbai)
#658 MARTINA COLMEGNA/ITA (Queretaro)
#544 Maria Kozyreva/RUS (Guadalajara)
#535 Aliona Bolsova/ESP (La Bisbal d'Emporda)
#515 Kaja Juvan/SLO (Saint-Malo)-RU
#461 KATRINA SCOTT/USA (Queretaro)-RU

*2025 FIRST-TIME WTA WD CHAMPIONS*
Brisbane - Mirra Andreeva, RUS (17)
Brisbane - Diana Shnaider, RUS (20)
Cluj-Napoca - Magali Kempen, BEL (27)
Cluj-Napoca - Anna Siskova, CZE (23)
Rabat - Maya Joint, AUS (19)
Iasi - Veronika Erjavec, SLO (25)
Iasi - Panna Udvardy, HUN (26)
Montreal - McCartney Kessler, USA (26)
Guangzhou - JANICE TJEN, INA (23)
[mixed GS]
AO - Olivia Gadecki, AUS (22)
WI - Katerina Siniakova, CZE (29)

*2025 - WTA 125 TITLES*
3 - SARA BEJLEK, CZE
2 - Veronika Erjavec, SLO
2 - Dalma Galfi, HUN
2 - Francesca Jones, GBR
2 - Kaja Juvan, SLO
2 - OKSANA SELEKHMETEVA, RUS
2 - Solana Sierra, ARG
2 - Anca Todoni, ROU
2 - Tereza Valentova, CZE

*WORLD JUNIOR FINALS - FINALS*
2015 Xu Shilin/CHN d. Kristina Schmiedlova/SVK
2016 Anna Blinkova/RUS d. Katie Swan/GBR
2017 Marta Kostyuk/UKR d. Kaja Juvan/SLO
2018 Clara Burel/FRA d. Camila Osorio/COL
2019 Diane Parry/FRA d. Daria Snigur/UKR
2020-22 - CANCELLED
2023 Alina Korneeva/RUS d. Sara Saito/JPN
2024 Emerson Jones/AUS d. Mika Stojsavljevic/GBR
2025 Jeline Vandromme/BEL d. Kristina Penickova/USA






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It's (almost) like we're becoming a parody of an actual nation...




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I spend a year plotting a mystery novel and then this happens.

[image or embed]

— Maureen Johnson (@maureenjohnsonbooks.com) October 19, 2025 at 9:56 PM


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i see you're doing something online that you have effortlessly done 100,000 times. would you like to use this ai tool? would you like to use this ai tool? would you like to use this ai tool? would you like to use this ai tool? would you like to use this ai tool? would you like to use this ai tool? w

— Jon Bois (@jonbois.bsky.social) October 20, 2025 at 10:38 AM


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All for now.
Posted by at

Sunday, October 19, 2025

Wk.43- Buttoning Down in the Clutch








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*WEEK 43 CHAMPIONS*
NINGO, CHINA (WTA 500; Hard Court Outdoor)
S: Elena Rybakina/KAZ def. Ekaterina Alexandrova/RUS 3-6/6-0/6-2
D: Nicole Melichar-Martinez/Liudmila Samsonova (USA/RUS) def. Timea Babos/Luisa Stefani (HUN/BRA) 6-4/2-6 [10-5]
OSAKA, JAPAN (WTA 250; Hard Court Outdoor)
S: Leylah Fernandez/CAN def. Tereza Valentova/CZE 6-0/5-7/6-3
D: Kristina Mladenovic/Taylor Townsend (FRA/USA) def. Storm Hunter/Desirae Krawczyk (AUS/USA) 6-4/2-6 [10-5]
Jinan, China (WTA 125; Hard Court Outdoor)
S: Janice Tjen/INA def. Anna Bondar/HUN 6-4/4-6/6-4
D: Elena Pridankina/Ekaterina Reyngold (RUS/RUS) def. Rutuja Bhosale/Zheng Wushuang (IND/CHN) 6-1/6-3
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (WTA 125; Red Clay Outdoor)
S: Simona Waltert/SUI def. Alice Rame/FRA 7-5/6-2
D: Leyre Romero Gormaz/Tara Wuerth (ESP/CRO) def. Irene Burillo Escorihuela/Ekaterine Gorgodze (ESP/GEO) 6-4/6-1
Tampico, Mexico (WTA 125; Hard Court Outdoor)
S: Hanne Vandewinkel/BEL def. Cadence Brace/CAN 6-4/6-3
D: Kayla Cross/Amelia Rajecki (CAN/GBR) def. Weronika Falkowska/Kristina Novak (POL/SLO) 6-4/6-3




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PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Elena Rybakina/KAZ
...searching for her "clutch gene" all year, Rybakina's button-down season found an edge in Ningbo. In the middle of a fight for the final spots in the WTA Finals field, the Kazakh really needed to leave China with a title in hand to keep her hopes alive.

Well, she did just that.



After opening with a three-set win over Dayana Yastremska, Rybakina dominated Ajla Tomljanovic (2 & love) to set up a SF face-off with Jasmine Paolini, who last week passed her for the "live" final spot in the eight-player WTAF field. Perhaps with an unlikely assist from new Race #8 Mirra Andreeva, passed by Paolini during the week and whose absence from next week's Tokyo draw meant that Paolini was officially qualified for Riyadh, Rybakina handled a "less-incentivized" version of the Italian than the one we've seen as she's played her way into the WTAF field during the Asian swing.

Rybakina still needed to win the title, though, to be within reach of Andreeva. After dropping the 1st set vs. Ekaterina Alexandrova, she lost just two games the remainder of the match, taking her 10th career title and making 2025 her third straight season with multiple tour crowns.

But Rybakina's work is not yet finished. The Kazakh remains 15 points behind Andreeva for the #8 spot, and will need to win two matches (i.e. reach the SF) next week in Tokyo to wrap up the final berth in the field.



Well, unless Mirra has other ideas and decides it's time to think about 2026 and makes the decision to pull up stakes in '25 *now*. But that's *probably* not very likely, so "Clutch Elena" will need to stick around for a few more days, just to be sure.
===============================================



RISERS: Leylah Fernandez/CAN and Jasmine Paolini/ITA
...while Fernandez has never climbed as high as she did when she was the U.S. Open runner-up in 2021, she's never gone away, either.

With her title run this week in Osaka, the now 23-year old Canadian has gone 4-1 in tour singles finals *since* her Flushing Meadows star-turn. This season, she's reached multiple WTA finals for the first time since that '21 season, winning her biggest career crown (in Washington 500) and claiming multiple titles for the first time ever.

Fernandez posted straight sets wins over Hailey Baptiste, Dalma Galfi and Rebecca Sramkova in Osaka before having to win consecutive three-setters in the SF (vs. 35-year old Sorana Cirstea) and final (vs. 18-year old Tereza Valentova) to pick up career title #5.

The Canadian climbs to #22 on Monday, reclaiming the CAN #1 spot from Victoria Mboko (#23), and will stand exactly 100 points away from a return to the Top 20. She hasn't ranked that high since she returned to New York in 2022 a year after reaching the Open final.



While so many of the WTA's worn out stars are flagging and looking for the exit as the schedule makes its way through its *tenth* consecutive month, Paolini's smile keeps getting brighter as her results lift her through the standings and she "runs through the tape" of 2025.

The Italian's hunt for a second straight berth in the singles field of the WTA Finals proved successful in Ningbo (with a little assistance), and she's set to likely be the busiest woman on the court next month in Riyadh with a constant schedule of both singles *and* doubles matches.

After having passed Elena Rybakina for the eighth and final spot in the WTA Race last week, Paolini spent the week gaining on and passing then-Race #7 Mirra Andreeva. After notching a win over Veronika Kudermetova, Paolini pulled her QF match vs. Belinda Bencic back from the brink, denying the Swiss as she served for the match and then saving six BP at 5-5 before holding and then breaking Bencic to force a 3rd. The three-set victory set up a SF match with Rybakina that stood as the final hurdle that would officially clinch Paolini's WTAF berth with a win. But then Andreeva's decision to not play next week in Tokyo was announced pre-match, meaning that the Russian now couldn't catch Paolini in the Race, clinching the Italian's spot no matter what happened vs. Rybakina.

Hardly shockingly, with nothing more than her standing in the tournament she was only playing in order to reach the WTAF in the first place, Paolini went out fairly quickly to Rybakina, wrapping up a successful Asian swing for "Baozong" (the Chinese fans' name for Paolini) while still leaving more gas in her tank for a final run (or two) to close out her season a few weeks from now.


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SURPRISES: Priska Nugroho/INA and Simona Waltert/SUI
...so many young Asian players have made significant moves over the course of the 2025 season, and in the latter stages of the season Nugroho has added her name to that list with a SF run in the Jinan 125.

The 22-year old Indonesian reached the girls' singles QF at both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in 2019 and won the AO junior doubles title alongside Alex Eala in '20. She played college tennis at North Carolina State in 2021-22, and soon had immediate pro success with five title runs in challengers during the '22 season.

Over the past year, Nugroho has won her biggest career title ($50K in December) as well as a pair of smaller challengers during the spring.

Ranked #323, Nugroho qualified in Jinan, then ran off wins over Bai Zhuoxuan, Whitney Osuigwe and Arina Rodionova en route to her biggest career semi. She lost there to Anna Bondar, but will jump inside the Top 290 on Monday. Her career-high is a #265 standing first attained in the summer of '23.



In Rio, Waltert continued with what has been a great 4Q for the Swiss.

In September, the 24-year old reached her biggest career final (a 125 in Ljubljana) and claimed her biggest title ($100K in Lisbon), then cracked the Top 100 for the first time on October 6. She entered this past week at a career-high #97, then put on a run in Brazil that included a comeback victory in the QF over Tara Wuerth after trailing 4-1 in the 3rd (Waltert won a deciding TB). After getting past Julia Grabher in the semis, the Swiss defeated Pastry Alice Rame 7-5/6-2 in the final to (again) set the mark for the biggest title of her career.

Waltert will climb to another new career high of #92 on Monday. She's gone 18-3 since falling in U.S. Open qualifying.
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VETERANS: Ekaterina Alexandrova/RUS and Ajla Tomljanovic/AUS
...Alexandrova opened the week by becoming the 17th woman representing the USSR or Russia (or whatever it was classified as at the time, name or flag-less or otherwise) to crack the WTA singles Top 10. She rode that wave all the way to her fourth '25 final (adding to her already best-ever season total) as she continues to burnish what has already been a "career year."



Alexandrova ran off wins over Yuan Yue, McCartney Kessler and Diana Shnaider without dropping a set to reach the title match, and claimed the 1st set there vs. Elena Rybakina. But the Kazakh, pursuing the final spot in the WTAF singles field, climbed out of that hole and swept through the Hordette in the final two sets.

BTW, the 30-year old Alexandrova, who turns 31 in November, isn't the oldest to debut in the Top 10 in WTA history. Roberta Vinci (33 in 2016) and Betty Stove (31 in 1976) were both a bit older.

Meanwhile, Tomljanovic reached her first QF since May (Rabat), qualifying in Ningbo with wins over Maya Joint and Antonia Ruzic. In the MD, the Aussie took out Clara Tauson in three sets, then rallied from 0-5 down in the 1st to defeat Zeynep Sonmez 7-6/6-3 in the 2nd Round.



Of course, none of that helped Tomljanovic once Elena Rybakina came calling, as she notched just two games vs. the Kazakh. Still, her result will move the world #104 back inside the Top 100 after a two-week stint on the outside looking in.
===============================================
COMEBACK: Diana Shnaider/RUS
...a few weeks ago, though she'd had some '25 doubles success, Shnaider's singles season was looking to be a "lost" one, one year after her breakout campaign had seen her win four titles (on three surfaces), rack up 55 match wins, and come close to cracking the Top 10 earlier this season.

The Hordette was fumbling around .500 in match play and without a SF result (0-3 in QF) this season before a late summer addition of Sascha Bajin as coach just before the U.S. Open. The move proved to be genius igniter of the Russian's results, as she quickly won a tour title in Monterrey with the former Coach of the Year in her corner. Before the winning jaunt, she'd gone 1-5 in her last six matches.

Shnaider's results in Asia hadn't been great when she showed up in Ningbo, as she came into the week on a three-match losing skid, but the good feelings garnered from her "new relationship" were surely still clinging to her psyche (though they likely needed a refresh). She got it, with wins over Wang Xiyu, Karolina Muchova and Zhu Lin to reach her second SF of the season.

Shnaider lost there to Ekaterina Alexandrova, but her 8-5 run since late August has improved her season mark to 27-24 and will see her settling in at #18 on Monday.


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FRESH FACES: Tereza Valentova/CZE, Janice Tjen/INA and Hanne Vandewinkel/BEL
...Valentova's game may not produce the sort of lyrical highlight packages that are common for her countrywoman Karolina Muchova (of course, whose does?), but the 18-year Czech surely can string together the sort of moments -- whether they feature power, defense or touch -- that earmark her as a player to *really* keep an eye on once the 2026 season rolls around.



Throughout this season, the teenager has been knocking down career signposts as her footsteps have grown louder and louder in the distance. Multiple $75K titles early in the season were followed by slam MD debuts in Paris and New York (w/ 1r wins in both), a Top 100 ranking, a pair of 125 crowns, a first tour-level SF (in Prague) and now, this week, Valentova's maiden WTA singles final in Osaka.

Ranked #78, the Czech qualified to reach the MD, then handled Alex Eala (1 & 2) and Elise Mertens (4 & 1) before outlasting Olga Danilovic and Jaqueline Cristian in back-to-back three-setters to set up a final match-up with Leylah Fernandez.



Against the Canadian, Valentova's nerves got the best of her in a love 1st set, but she rebounded to win a tight 2nd and then rallied from 4-1 (and nearly 5-1) down in the 3rd to get back on serve in the decider before Fernandez finally prevailed.

The '24 RG girls' champ (and '23 U.S. Open jr. finalist), Valentova will climb to a new carer-high of #59 on Monday. The distance between Valentova -- who sure has the *look* of "The Crusher Most Likely..." -- and the big names of the WTA has closed significantly since the start of '25.

That trend might just accelerate exponentially come 2026.

Meanwhile, Tjen's introductory season of ITF success (6 titles), her slam debut and first win (both at the U.S. Open), and maiden WTA final (Sao Paulo) added another chapter with her biggest title in the 125 in Jinan that will kick her ranking to yet another new career high (rising from #98 to #80).

The 23-year old Pepperdine product posted wins over Wang Yafan, Polina Iatcenko, Gao Xinyu and Lulu Sun (saving two MP vs. the Kiwi) to reach her first 125 final, where she outlasted Anna Bondar in a 6-4/4-6/6-4 victory.



In Tampico (MEX), 21-year old Vandewinkel, with 125 & $100K QF results since the start of September, reached the final of and won her biggest career title in one of the three 125 events held in Week 43.

After opening with a win over Elli Mandlik (who arrived having just won a $100K crown in Oklahoma), the Waffle carried on with additional victories over Tessah Andrianjafitrimo, Marina Stakusic, Harriet Dart and Cadence Brace in a 4 & 3 final to take the tournament honors. She'll make her Top 150 debut on Monday.


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ITF PLAYER: Darja Semenistaja/LAT
...since winning her second career 125 crown back in April, the 23-year old Semenistaja (LAT #2) has posted of series of good results that came up *just* short of her intended target.

Over the past six months, she's twice been a runner-up in 125 and $100K events, as well as four times coming up short of additional finals with losses in 125/$100K semis. At Wimbledon, she missed out on her slam MD debut with a Q3 defeat.

She finally got over that hump in New York, qualifying to make her major debut, and this week in the $100K in Les Franqueses del Valles (ESP) she got back into the winner's circle, as well, following up wins over the likes of Anna-Lena Friedsam and Daria Snigur with a 7-5/7-6 victory in the final over Linda Klimovicova to pick up career title #16 on the ITF level.



After being stuck in the #101-135 range for most of the past two seasons, Semenistaja will finally make her Top 100 debut on Monday.
===============================================
JUNIOR STARS: Eva Bennemann/GER and Mika Stojsavljevic/GBR
...another week, another German champion?

It's starting to look that way of late, and on home soil in Essen it was assured as 18-year old Bennemann faced off with 19-year old countrywoman Tessa Brockmann in a $15K final. Brockmann has picked up four challenger titles in '25, while this weekend Bennemann claimed her second straight with a 1-6/6-1/6-1 victory. On a nine-match winning streak, she's gone 11-1 in her last twelve.

Stojsavljevic, the '24 U.S. Open junior champ, won her second career pro title in the $35K in Birmingham (ENG), as the 16-year old defeated Katarina Kuzmova 6-4/6-0 in the final to improve to 12-2 over the last three weeks. During that stretch, the Brit has run off SF-RU-W results in a trio of $35K tournaments.


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DOUBLES: Kristina Mladenovic/Taylor Townsend, FRA/USA and Nicole Melichar-Martinez/Liudmila Samsonova, USA/RUS
...while Townsend and Katerina Siniakova are still booked as a duo at the WTA Finals, both were again in seperate cities this week. #1-ranked Siniakova (w/ Hsieh Su-wei) fell in a MTB in the Ningo semis, while #2 Townsend won a 10-5 MTB in the Osaka final alongside Kristina Mladenovic, defeating the team of Storm Hunter (just off a title run w/ Siniakova in Wuhan) & Desirae Krawczyk.

The first crown for the pair as a team, Townsend's win is the eleventh of her WTA career, with her four titles in '25 putting her in a tie at the top of the tour list this season. Mladenovic, often injured or playing singles (w/ hardly eye-popping success) rather than collecting doubles titles the last few seasons, picks up career win #29. But it's the former #1 and nine-time slam (6 WD, 3 MX) champion's first title at tour level since 2022 (!).

Mladenovic won a handful of ITF crowns in 2023-24, and had a lone 125 title run last year (w/ Siniakova, of course).

The last survivor on tour of what was a great generation of Pastry players (w/ the '25 retirement of Caroline Garcia, as well as -- I guess? -- Alize Cornet), Mladenovic had been just 8-6 in doubles in '25 (after a 6-2 start with an AO QF and Abu Dhabi RU) before this week, after injury prevented her from playing a match for seven months between February and September.



In Ningbo, Melichar-Martinez and Samsonova prevailed in MTB in three of their four outings, including vs. Hsieh/Siniakova in the SF and Babos/Stefani in the final, to win their second title together (w/ '24 Seoul).

Melichar-Martinez's 18th career title is her third this year, while two of Samsonova's three career tour WD titles have come alongside NMM during consecutive Asian swings over the last thirteen months. The duo also reached the final at Rosmalen during this year's grass season.


===============================================
WHEELCHAIR: Manami Tanaka/JPN
...the Series 1 Japan Open was held this past week in Osaka, but the event lost its top seed (Yui Kamiji) early on as the world #1 withdrew from the all-Japanese field before playing her opening match.

In Kamiji's absence, 29-year old Tanaka (WC #13) swept the titles, claiming her first career singles S1 crown with a 6-4/6-2 win in the final over Saki Takamuro. The two joined forces to win the doubles, the discipline where Tanaka most makes her presence known on the wheelchair tour. The win is her fifth Series 1 doubles crown of '25, added to a Super Series win this season alongside (as were her other WD wins) Zhu Zhenzhen.

Last year, Tanaka was a doubles Gold medalist at the Paralympics with Kamiji.
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1. Ningbo 2nd Rd. - Elena Rybakina def. Dayana Yastremska
...6-4/6-7(6)/6-3. Rybakina has often misplaced her closing ability this season, and with her WTAF spot in jeopardy she bobbled it all over this opening match, but ultimately survived.

The Kazakh rallied from 4-2 down to take the 1st set from Yastremska, but couldn't put away a pair of MP in the 2nd set TB, which the Ukrainian snatched away at 8-6. Rybakina pulled off the lone break of the 3rd, though, to take a 4-2 lead and eventually served out the win at love three games later.


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2. Ningbo QF - Jasmine Paolini def. Belinda Bencic
...5-7/7-5/6-4. Rybakina stayed in the WTAF game with the gutsy win over Yastremska, then it was Paolini's turn to do the same vs. Bencic.

The Swiss served for the win at 5-4 in the 2nd. But the Italian got the break, then saved six BP at 5-5 in the following game. She broke Bencic to send things to a 3rd, which she won to set up a showdown with WTAF berth competitor Rybakina.


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3. Ningbo SF - Elena Rybakina def. Jasmine Paolini
...6-3/6-2. Before this one even started, part of the drama of the contest was ruined (thanks, WTA) when Mirra Andreeva's name wasn't in next week's Tokyo draw, which mean the Hordette couldn't pass Paolini and the Italian was the seventh to qualify for the WTAF.



Of course, there was still the issue of Rybakina needing the win, but without a similar "need it" component in the mix for Paolini the juice was likely removed from the scoreline, as well.
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4. Ningbo Final - Elena Rybakina def. Ekaterina Alexandrova
...3-6/6-0/6-2. After so many just-missed-it losses that could have already wrapped up a WTAF berth for Rybakina this season, she rallies to do her part in Ningbo.

To be continued...
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5. Ningbo 1st Rd. - Ajla Tomljanovic def. Clara Tauson
...1-6/7-6(4)/6-3. Surprisingly, this is becoming one of the more reliable head-to-head series on tour.

In their fifth meeting, Tomljanovic and Tauson combined to go three sets for a third straight time. This past summer in Cincinnati, Tomljanovic forced a 3rd set with a 2nd set TB win, but lost in three to the Dane. Here the Aussie forced another decider, but this time prevailed in the end to improve to 3-2 vs. Tauson (winning for the second time over that trio of three-setters).


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6. Osaka 1st Rd. - Katie Boulter def. Linda Noskova
...7-6(3)/6-3. Coming in, this felt like a case of the "less movable object" (aka Noskova) vs. a "quite resistible force" (aka Boulter). Noskova had been 7-2 on the 4Q Asian swing, with a final in Beijing and two Top 10 wins, while Boulter was 4-10 in her last fourteen matches.

So... one never knows.

But Boulter still lost in the 2nd Round, so her only multi-win event since Roland Garros remains Nottingham in June.
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7. Osaka Q1 - Taylor Townsend def. Mei Yamaguchi
...6-7(4)/6-3/7-6(3). Townsend's headline-grabbing U.S. Open experience ended with her failing to convert a handful of MP vs. Barbora Krejcikova, then her Asian swing had its own forgettable start -- complete with controversial culinary suggestions -- in China during BJK Cup finals week.

Back after a three-week break, and in her first singles match since the Open, Townsend dropped the 1st set vs. Yamaguchi after having led 5-3.

Everything came back around in Townsend's favor in the 3rd, where she saved three MP from love/40 down at 5-4, then three more two games later down 6-5, before winning a deciding TB.

Townsend failed to reach the MD, though, losing to Dalma Galfi in the final Q-round.
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8. Jinan 125 SF - Janice Tjen def. Lulu Sun
...4-6/7-6(7)/6-4. Sun rallied from 4-2 down in the 2nd, and served for the match at 6-5. After failing to do so, she led the TB 5-1 and held a pair of MP at 6-4.

Tjen survived with a 9-7 win, then took the 3rd to advance to her first 125 final a month after her maiden tour-level final appearance in Sao Paulo. After falling in the final to Tiantsoa Rakotomanga Rajaonah that time, she outlasted Anna Bondar in three this time to claim her biggest title.
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9. Ningbo 2nd Rd. - Belinda Bencic def. Yuliia Starodubtseva
...5-7/6-4/7-5. Bencic got over her testy loss to Iga Swiatek in Wuhan quickly enough to triumph over Magda Linette in straights in her Ningbo opener, then won a 3:33 encounter -- the longest WTA MD match of the year -- over Starodubtseva.



It didn't help when she failed to serve out the match vs. Paolini a round later (in another three-hour affair), though.
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10. $75K Quinta do Lago POR Final - Maria Timofeeva def. Alexis Blokhina
...7-6(7)/7-6(3). Timofeeva hasn't quite kept pace with the stunning start of her career, when she won the title in Budapest in her tour-level MD debut (as a LL) in July 2023.

This $75K win is her second singles title on the ITF level this season, though, joining a $100K run in July.


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HM- $35K Santa Margherita di Pula ITA Final - Julie Struplova def. Jennifer Ruggeri
...2/6/6-2/6-4. Another week, another Crusher champion (but not one named Tereza).

Struplova, 20, wins career ITF title #6 (her second in '25) with a three-set win over an Italian foe in Italy.
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1. Ningbo 2nd Rd. - Zhu Lin def. Mirra Andreeva
...4-6/6-3/6-2. The result that helped push along the narrative for the rest of the week (and at least part of *next* week, too).

If she weren't in contention for a spot in Riyadh for her maiden WTA Finals competition, Andreeva might be the latest candidate to pull the ripcord on her season a few weeks early. Thing is, her late season swoon might keep her out of her out of the WTAF, even with two early season 1000 titles under her belt.

The 18-year old's efforts didn't include registering a win in Ningbo, as she dropped her third straight match and is 2-4 in her last six.

Starting off with a Race standing of #7, Andreeva was the latest to be passed by by Jasmine Paolini, who reached the Ningbo semis. Andreeva's absence in Tokyo, where she'd been expected to get a wild card, officially qualified Paolini ahead of her for the Finals.

Meanwhile, Elena Rybakina stands poised to knock Andreeva out of the field in the season's eleventh hour... if she can reach the Tokyo semis next week.

In the end, one wonders if missing out on Riyadh might be best for Andreeva, who at the moment seems to be a fatigued and emotional shadow of the player she was this past spring and summer. And, make no mistake, Rybakina *could* still fail to do what she needs to in Tokyo, sending what's left of 2025's version of Andreeva to Saudi Arabia, after all.

It might not be pretty.


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2. Osaka Final - Leylah Fernandez def. Tereza Valentova
...6-0/5-7/6-3. What looked like an intriguing final turned out to be just that, as after Fernandez dominated the 1st vs. the nervous Czech in her maiden tour final match, the Czech pulled things together and made the Canadian work for the trophy.

Tied at 4-4 in the 2nd, the two traded off three straight breaks before Valentova finally served out the set to force the decider. There, Fernandez again grabbed the early edge, then had to fight off the 18-year old, who again responded well to adversity.

Falling behind 3-1 (and breaking a lace, leading to a match interruption while she had to re-lace a shoe with the clock ticking, the crowd waiting, the TV crew filming, and the umpire staring down at her while Fernandez milled around in the backcourt -- talk about an odd bit of pressure!), Valentova fought off a BP at 4-1 and then turned the momentum back in her favor by breaking Fernandez to get back on serve at 4-3. She hit her way to deuce after falling behind 15/40 in the next game, but the Canadian's second serve return winner on BP #3 finally proved to give her a lead that Valentova couldn't erase.

Fernandez served out the win, taking a second WTA title (7,000 miles from the one she won in Washington) in a season for the first time. The eighth teenage tour singles finalist in 2025, Valentova is the first of the group to *not* walk off with the title.


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3. Osaka 1st Rd. - Naomi Osaka def. Wakana Sonobe
...6-0/6-4. Osaka faces off for the first time with one of the Japanese Great Wavers that she helped inspire, defeating reigning AO junior champ Sonobe (who was 10 years old when Osaka won her first major) in straight sets.


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HM- $75K Quinta do Lago POR Final - Francisca Jorge/Matilde Jorge def. Anna Siskova/Maria Timofeeva
...4-6/7-5 [10-7]. Portugal's Jorge sisters win another one, improving to 6-2 in '25 finals together (5-2 ITF, 1-0 125).

Overall, they've combined to win a pair of 125 crowns and 22 ITF challengers as a team in their careers.
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Now it's even more insulting that ESPN this summer replaced the longstanding use of Frehley's version of "New York Groove" in and out of commercials during the U.S. Open with a washed-out jumble of a version just so that they could tout that it was by a "2x Grammy nominee." It was horrific.







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*MOST WTA TITLES in 2020s*
25 - 1/2/8/6/5/3 = Iga Swiatek
16 - 3/2/0/3/4/4 = Aryna Sabalenka
10 - 0/1/0/4/3/2 = Coco Gauff
9 - 1/0/1/2/3/2 = ELENA RYBAKINA
[2025 finals]
8 - Aryna Sabalenka (4-4)
6 - Jessie Pegula (3-3)
5 - Amanda Anisimova (2-3)
4 - Iga Swiatek (3-1)
4 - Coco Gauff (2-2)
4 - EKATERINA ALEXANDROVA (1-3)
[2020-25 finals]
30 - 3/3/3/6/7/8 = Sabalenka (16-14)
29 - 1/2/9/8/5/4 = Swiatek (25-4)
19 - 5/0/3/4/5/2 = RYBAKINA (9-10)
18 - 1/0/2/5/4/6 = Pegula (8-10)

*CON. YEARS WITH 2+ WTA TITLES - active w/ '25*
5 years (2021-25) - Iga Swiatek
3 years (2023-25) - Jessie Pegula
3 years (2023-25) - Aryna Sabalenka
3 years (2023-25) - Coco Gauff
3 years (2023-25) - ELENA RYBAKINA

*MOST WTA SF in 2025*
11 - Aryna Sabalenka (8-3)
9 - Iga Swiatek (4-5)
8 - Jessie Pegula (6-2)
8 - EKATERINA ALEXANDROVA (4-4)
7 - JASMINE PAOLINI (2-5)
7 - ELENA RYBAKINA (2-5)
6 - Amanda Anisimova (5-1)

*MOST 2025 TOP 10 WINS*
11 - Aryna Sabalenka
9 - Coco Gauff
8 - Amanda Anisimova
8 - Iga Swiatek
6 - Mirra Andreeva
6 - Elena Rybakina
[most events w/ multiple Top 10 wins]
4 - Gauff (Madrid/Rome/RG/Wuhan)
3 - Sabalenka (Miami/RG/US)
2 - Alexandrova (Doha/Stuttgart)
2 - M.Andreeva (Dubai/IW)
2 - Anisimova (London/Beijing)
2 - Keys (Adelaide/AO)
2 - Ostapenko (Doha/Stuttgart)
2 - Rybakina (Cincinnati/Ningbo)
2 - Vondrousova (Berlin/US)

*CAREER WTA TITLES - CANADA*
5 - LEYLAH FERNANDEZ (2021-25)
3 - Bianca Andreescu (2019)
2 - Carling Bassett-Seguso (1983-87)
2 - Helen Kelesi (1986-88)
1 - Genie Bouchard (2014)
1 - Aleksandra Wozniak (2008)
1 - Jill Hetherington (1988)
1 - Patricia Hy-Boulais (1986)
1 - Victoria Mboko (2025)

*2025 FIRST-TIME WTA FINALISTS*
Polina Kudermetova, RUS (#107/21 = Brisbane)
Emiliana Arango, COL (#133/24 = Merida)
Maya Joint, AUS (#78/19 = Rabat)-W
Wang Xinyu, CHN (#49/23 = Berlin)
Alex Eala, PHI (#74/20 = Eastbourne)
Lois Boisson, FRA (#63/22 = Hamburg)-W
Anna Bondar, HUN (#77/28 = Hamburg)
Victoria Mboko, CAN (#85/18 = Montreal)-W
Tiatsoa Sarah Rakotomanga Rajaonah, FRA (#73/19 = Sao Paulo)-W
Janice Tjen, INA (#130/23 = Sao Paulo)
Iva Jovic, USA (#73/17 = Guadalajara)-W
TEREZA VALENTOVA, CZE (#78/18 = Osaka)

*2025 YOUNGEST WTA FINALISTS*
[17]
Mirra Andreeva, RUS (Dubai - W)
Mirra Andreeva, RUS (Indian Wells - W)
Iva Jovic, USA (Guadalajara - W)
[18]
Victoria Mboko, CAN (Montreal - W)
TEREZA VALENTOVA, CZE (Osaka - L)
[19]
Maya Joint, AUS (Rabat - W)
Maya Joint, AUS (Eastbourne - W)
Tiantsoa Sarah Rakotomanga Rajaonah, FRA (Sao Paulo - W)

*2025 WTA TOP 10 SINGLES DEBUTS*
Mirra Andreeva/RUS
Amanda Anisimova/USA
Ekaterina Alexandrova/RUS
[USSR/RUS - all-time]
1975 Olga Morozova, USSR
1988 Natalia Zvereva, USSR (later BLR)
1998 Anna Kournikova, RUS
2001 Elena Dementieva, RUS
2003 Anastasia Myskina, RUS
2004 Nadia Petrova, RUS
2004 Svetlana Kuznetsova, RUS
2004 Maria Sharapova, RUS
2004 Vera Zvonareva, RUS
2006 Dinara Safina, RUS
2007 Anna Chakvetadze, RUS
2013 Maria Kirilenko, RUS
2015 Ekaterina Makarova, RUS
2018 Dasha Kasatkina, RUS (now AUS)
2022 Veronika Kudermetova, RUS
2025 Mirra Andreeva, RUS
2025 Ekaterina Alexandrova, RUS

*2025 WTA DOUBLES TITLES*
4 - Sara Errani, ITA
4 - Jasmine Paolini, ITA
4 - Erin Routliffe, NZL
4 - Katerina Siniakova, CZE
4 - TAYLOR TOWNSEND, USA
3 - Timea Babos, HUN
3 - Gaby Dabrowski, CAN
3 - NICOLE MELICHAR-MARTINEZ, USA
3 - Luisa Stefani, BRA

*2025 WTA DOUBLES FINALS*
7 (2-5) = Anna Danilina, KAZ
6 (4-2) = TAYLOR TOWNSEND, USA
5 (4-1) = Sara Errani, ITA
5 (4-1) = Jasmine Paolini, ITA
5 (4-1) = Katerina Siniakova, CZE
5 (3-2) = NICOLE MELICHAR-MARTINEZ, USA
5 (2-3) = Aleksandra Krunic, SRB
5 (2-3) = Alona Ostapenko, LAT
5 (2-3) = Guo Hanyu, CHN
5 (1-4) = Zhang Shuai, CHN
[duos]
5...Errani/Paolini (4-1)
4...BABOS/STEFANI (3-1)
4...Guo/Panova (2-2)






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Maybe Mike meant "stood on" Capitol Police?

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— MeidasTouch (@meidastouch.com) October 15, 2025 at 12:19 PM


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It's almost like we're becoming a parody of an actual nation...


The U.S. military demonstration that shot live-fire artillery rounds over Interstate 5 dropped metal shrapnel on a California Highway Patrol vehicle, resulting in damage, agency officials said.

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— Stars and Stripes (@starsandstripes.bsky.social) October 19, 2025 at 7:37 PM


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I have a new post on my author bog: Recently published poetry dianeelaynedeesauthor.blogspot.com/2025/10/rece... #poetry #poetrycommunity #WritingCommunity

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— Diane Elayne Dees (@womenwhoserve.bsky.social) October 14, 2025 at 4:57 PM

I'm pleased to have another poem published in the Delta Poetry Review. I invite you to read "Weather Report." deltapoetryreview.com/2025oct-dees... #poetry #poetrycommunity #WritingCommunity

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— Diane Elayne Dees (@womenwhoserve.bsky.social) October 14, 2025 at 4:31 PM


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All for now.
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