Belgium’s Yanina Wickmayer advanced to her 11th WTA final at the Citi Open in Washington after defeating Yulia Puntintseva of Kazakhstan 6-4 6-2, to set up a title-clash with Lauren Davis.
Wickmayer raced to a 4-0 lead in the opening set before her opponent staged a mini-comeback. This, however, was not enough as the six-footer went on to take the opening set.
Riding on the momentum, Wickmayer was no less dominant in the second set as she held her serve throughout while breaking Puntintseva on two occasions to close out the battle in 87 minutes.
For Davis, who ended fellow American Jessica Pegula’s dream run with a 6-2 6-3 win in the other semi-final, will contest in her first-ever summit clash against the seventh-seeded Wickmayer on Sunday.
Surprisingly, the local hope will head into the finals with a clean 3-0 record over Wickmayer, who at No. 44, is ranked 78 places above Davis in the world rankings. In fact, two of her wins have come in 2016 alone.
The day turned merrier for Wickmayer, who teamed up with Monica Niculescu to bag the women’s double title here. The Belgian-Romanian combination beat the Japanese duo of Shuko Aoyama and Risa Ozaki 6-4 6-3 in the 75-minute final.
