The final of the women’s tennis tournament on hard courts in St Petersburg with a prize fund of 703,580 USD will be between the top-seeded players – Maria Sakkari (Greece) and Anett Kontaveit (Estonia). Thus, the top- and second-seeded in the tournament will face each other.
Maria Sakkari defeated the Romanian Irina-Camelia Begu with 2-1 (6:4, 6:7, 6:4) in a marathon match lasting 3:04 hours.
The Greek made two late breaks in the first set to close it at 6:4. The second was more contested, with both tennis players losing their passes once to reach a tiebreak. There were many mini-breaks in it again, and this time Irina-Camelia Begu managed to prevail with 7:4. The third set was also very interesting, as Maria Sakkari made 4 breaks against 3 for Irina-Camelia Begu for the final 6:4.
In the other semifinal, Anett Kontaveit defeated Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko with 2-0 (6:3, 6:4) in a match that lasted only 71 minutes. Interestingly, Jelena Ostapenko managed to take a 3:0 lead in the first set, but Anett Kontaveit won 6 consecutive games to win 6-3. In the second set, the two exchanged two breaks, but Anett Kontaveit managed to break through at 5:4 in her favor, which closed the match. The Estonian made 4 aces and was much more convincing in her returns.
