Washington (AFP) - Estonia's Kaia Kanepi, trying to end a nine-year WTA title drought at age 37, advanced to the Washington Open final on Saturday by defeating Australian Daria Saville 6-3, 6-1.
World number 37 Kanepi will play for the crown Sunday against 60th-ranked Liudmila Samsonova, who routed China's Wang Xiyu 6-1, 6-1 in the other semi-final at the ATP and WTA hardcourt event, a US Open tuneup.
Kanepi seeks her fifth career WTA title but her first since the 2013 Brussels Open.She won her only WTA hardcourt title at Brisbane in 2012.
In her first WTA final since a 2021 Australian Open tuneup at Melbourne, Kanepi needed only 73 minutes to dispatch Saville, who was in her first WTA semi-final since 2018 at Acapulco.
"I played my best match," Kanepi said."Everything was very smooth for me.I hit a lot of lines."
Kanepi reached her first Grand Slam quarter-final since 2017 at this year's Australian Open and credited that for a confidence boost crucial to her success this year.
"It was amazing," she said."I never thought I would make quarters in Australia.I thought it's not just my place.But I played really well, and then I continued playing well.I didn't actually put any pressure on myself to achieve something special."
Samsonova, 23, won her only meeting with Kanepi in last year's first round at Wimbledon and needed only 67 minutes to eliminate 21-year-old lucky loser Wang, a 95th-ranked left-hander.
Samsonova won her only prior WTA final at last year's German Open and collected her second victory of the year over a top-10 rival when she ousted reigning US Open champion Emma Raducanu in the quarter-finals.
Men's semi-finals were set for Saturday night with Wimbledon runner-up Nick Kyrgios of Australia facing Sweden's 115th-ranked Mikael Ymer and eighth-ranked Andrey Rublev playing Japan's 96th-ranked Yoshihito Nishioka.
Kyrgios, ranked 63rd, won the most recent of his six ATP titles at Washington in 2019 while Ymer lost his only ATP final last August at Winston-Salem.
Nishioka, in his first ATP semi-final since 2020 at Delray Beach, won his only ATP title in 2018 at Shenzhen.
Rublev seeks his 12th career crown and fourth title of the season after Marseille, Dubai and Belgrade, hoping to match Spaniards Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz for the most ATP trophies this year.
Nishioka and Rublev split two prior meetings, Nishioka winning at Sydney in 2019 and Rublev winning at last year's ATP Cup.
