A “more aggressive” Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini opened the 2025 WTA Finals Riyadh presented by PIF with a 6-3, 6-3 win over Asia Muhammad and Demi Schuurs in the Martina Navratilova Group.

WTA Finals: Scores | Draws | Order of play

After failing to advance out of the round-robin stage in Riyadh last year, the Italian duo hopes to make a deep run at the year-end crown this year as the top seeds — and started that quest with a 1-hour and 17-minute victory in the first match of the tournament.

“It was a very tough match…the ball is flying, it’s not easy to do lobs,” Errani confessed afterwards, saying that the Olympic gold medalists are forced to take a more proactive approach to their tennis to match the conditions inside King Saud University Indoor Arena.

“We have to change a little bit the way we play; we have to be more aggressive. In other places, we maybe stay at the baseline both; here, maybe more serve and volley, go to the net much more, the points are very short. We have to be more aggressive, and we did it.”

Errani and Paolini won a string on consecutive games in each set to secure the win. In the opener, they won three straight games from 2-2 — a momentum swing that started by saving three break points on Paolini’s serve in the fifth game.

In set two, Muhammad and Schuurs made a push by winning three straight games of their own after trailing 2-0 — but Errani and Paolini ripped off the last four games to take the match.

The match broke a head-to-head tie between the two teams this season. Muhammad and Schuurs routed the Italians in March at the BNP Paribas Open, but Errani and Paolini won in straight sets in the US Open quarterfinals.

Errani and Paolini won their first round-robin match in Riyadh last year but finished 1-2 in the group stage and failed to advance to the semifinals. An undefeated record this year will not only net them a first year-end crown, but potentially the year-end World No. 1 ranking. To earn that spot, they would need to run the table, and the pair of Taylor Townsend and Katerina Siniakova will need to win fewer than two matches in the group stage.

Hsieh and Ostapenko come from behind, avenge Wimbledon loss to Mertens and Kudermetova

4-2.

That scoreline will be remembered not only by Hsieh Su-wei and Jelena Ostapenko, but also by Veronika Kudermetova and Elise Mertens, as that was the score the latter pair led by not just in the match tiebreak, but earlier in the second set as well.

It proved meaningless, however, as the No. 6 seeds Hsieh and Ostapenko rallied to claim both the second set and the match, securing a 1-6, 7-5, [10-5] victory in 1 hour and 36 minutes over the No. 4 seeds to open their 2025 WTA Finals campaign.

“My thoughts after the first set were like ‘We lost 6-1, but it’s still good. We made it to the WTA Finals, we made two Slam finals, so it’s okay. We’re probably going to lose this match, but we’ll try our best and we’ll fight,'” Ostapenko said after the match. “And then, step-by-step, we were playing better and better every point. We went from not playing our best tennis to almost our best tennis in the last few points.”

The turnaround came swiftly. After dropping the first set in just 22 minutes, Hsieh and Ostapenko quickly found themselves down a set and a break following the opening game of the second set.

But the Australian Open and Wimbledon finalists refused to fold. They trailed by a break twice in the second set and broke back both times, part of a stretch of five consecutive breaks to begin the set. Kudermetova and Mertens finally consolidated a break for a 4-2 lead, but Hsieh and Ostapenko responded by rattling off three straight games to take their first lead of the set at 5-4. A winner from Hsieh sealed one final break to force the match tiebreak.

The pattern repeated. Kudermetova and Mertens jumped ahead 4-2 and looked poised to close, but Hsieh and Ostapenko reeled off seven straight points, and eight of the last nine, to complete the comeback and avenge their loss in the Wimbledon final earlier this season.

Asked after the match what it would mean to win her second Martina Navratilova trophy after capturing the WTA Finals title in 2013 in Singapore, Hsieh had enough energy left to crack a joke.

“Next time, don’t say the year, because people know I’m getting really old,” she said. “But it’s always nice to be back having won the trophy before, and I hope I can leave with another one.”

Whether they can pull it off remains to be seen, but Hsieh and Ostapenko are off to the best possible start, joining Errani and Paolini at 1-0 in the Martina Navratilova Group.

At the very least, they’re looking to avoid a repeat of last year, when both were eliminated in the round-robin stage — Ostapenko with Lyudmyla Kichenok, and Hsieh with Mertens.