Defeating the top two Canadian players in succession, Rybakina avenged her previous losses and advanced to the final.

As is well known, both the ATP and WTA hold year-end championships. However, qualifying for these prestigious finals is no easy feat. Yet this week, one player managed to secure a spot at the last moment. Not only that, she successfully avenged her defeats twice. So, what exactly happened? Today, this article will take you through the story.

This player is Kazakhstan’s Rybakina, who won her first Grand Slam title at Wimbledon in 2022. However, her 2025 Grand Slam performances have been disappointing, as she has yet to reach a Grand Slam quarterfinal this season. Objectively speaking, this result falls short of expectations for Rybakina.

The decline in her Grand Slam results has also reflected in her WTA1000 tournament performances. So far in 2025, Rybakina has not reached a final in any WTA1000 event. Because of this, she has often been fighting hard just to qualify for the year-end championships.

Last week at the Ningbo 500 event, Rybakina had a first-round bye, then battled through three sets to defeat Ukrainian player Yastremska, who had previously reached a Grand Slam semifinal, advancing with difficulty. In the quarterfinals, she convincingly beat Australian qualifier Tomljanovic to reach the semifinals. There, she swept aside Italian player Paolini, who had twice reached Grand Slam finals, to make the final. Despite losing the first set in the final, Rybakina came back to win the next two sets against Russian player Alexandrova, claiming her first career title on the China leg of the tour.

Even so, Rybakina needed to reach the semifinals of this week’s WTA500 Tokyo Open to secure her place in the year-end championships. As a seeded player, she received a first-round bye as usual. In the second round, her opponent was Canadian Fernandez, who had once reached a Grand Slam final. In late July, Fernandez had reversed a loss to Rybakina by defeating her in the semifinals of the WTA500 Washington Open and went on to win the title decisively in the final.

In the first set, Rybakina broke Fernandez’s serve early. Although Fernandez responded by breaking back to close the gap, at a critical moment Rybakina broke serve again to take the set 6–4, gaining the upper hand in the match.

In the second set, Rybakina again broke serve first to take the lead. Both players then held their serves, and Rybakina successfully held her serve to close out the set 6–3. This was her first win over Fernandez in the 2025 season, avenging her earlier loss and bringing her just one step away from the year-end championships.

In the quarterfinals, Rybakina faced Canadian Mboko, who had also overturned a loss to her in late July by defeating her in the semifinals of the WTA1000 Montreal Open. Mboko then went on to claim her first WTA1000 title by beating four-time Grand Slam champion Osaka in the final.

In the first set, Rybakina held serve and then broke to take the lead. Although Mboko improved her serving and prevented further breaks, Rybakina maintained her advantage and sealed the set by winning her service game at match point.

The second set saw both players playing more cautiously, with neither able to break serve. The score remained tight, leading to a tiebreak. Rybakina started strong in the tiebreak, quickly building a large lead. Although Mboko fought back to narrow the gap to one point, Rybakina did not allow any further comeback and won the tiebreak decisively.

With this victory, Rybakina not only defeated the top two Canadian players, avenging her earlier losses to them, but also secured the final spot for the year-end championships. That’s today’s tennis story; more to come tomorrow.(Source: Tennis Home, Author: Yixin Jushi)