WUHAN — When World No. 170 Sonay Kartal, who is only two tournaments removed from a six-month injury layoff, meets No. 16 seed and No. 22 Maja Chwalinska in the final of the Dongfeng \u2022 Voyah Wuhan Open on Sunday, it will be the first time since the tournament\u2019s inception in 2014 that two players ranked outside the top 20 have played for the title.<\/p>\n
Either way, a new WTA 1000 champion will be crowned in Wuhan. Chwalinska is seeking her first career WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz title, while Kartal is eyeing her second at tour level.<\/p>\n
From the order of play and head-to-head history to prize money and more, here’s everything you need to know about Sunday’s Wuhan final.<\/p>\n
When are the Wuhan finals?<\/p>\n
The doubles final begins play on Center Court at 4 p.m. local time, followed by the singles final, not before 6:30 p.m.<\/p>\n
Time conversions for singles final: NB 6:30 a.m. EST , 11:30 a.m. CEST\u00a0<\/p>\n
How did each singles player reach the championship?<\/p>\n
Chwalinska
First round: def. Mayar Sherif 6-3, 6-2
Second round: def. [16] Marie Bouzkova 1-6, 6-1, 6-1
Third round: def. [10] Iva Jovic 6-4, 6-1
Quarterfinal: def. Maria Sakkari 6-0, 3-6, 7-5
Semifinal: def. [7] Iga Swiatek 7-5, 6-1<\/p>\n
With her win over Swiatek, Chwalinska has earned two top 20 wins this season. She’s into her first final since her Cinderella run at Roland Garros.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kartal
First round: def. Anhelina Kalinina 7-5, 6-3
Second round: def. [9] Belinda Bencic 6-0, 7-5
Third round: def. [15] Jasmine Paolini 6-2, 6-0
Quarterfinal: def. [5] Elina Svitolina 2-6, 6-2, 6-4
Semifinal: def. Jelena Ostapenko 7-6(9), 7-6(5),\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kartal is into her second career tour-level final after winning the championship at the WTA 250 at Monastir, Tunisia in 2024. Every opponent she has beaten in Wuhan is ranked within the top 50.<\/p>\n
What are the ranking points and prize money at stake?<\/p>\n
In Wuhan, a total of USD $4,088,211 was available in prize money, and the singles champion will receive $665,000. The finalist will take home $385,001. In doubles, the winning duo splits $195,000 and runners-up earn $110,010.<\/p>\n
As with all WTA 1000 events, 1000 ranking points are on the table in both the PIF WTA Rankings and the Race to the WTA Finals at Indian Wells, while the runner-up earns 650 points. Any change in rank is based on how the player performs in the tournament compared to the points earned in the same week last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Regardless of win or loss, Kartal is projected to improve around the top 50 in the PIF WTA Rankings, while Chwalinska is projected to be in the top 15.\u00a0<\/p>\n
By the numbers<\/p>\n
Chwalinska<\/p>\n
3: Chwalinska is just the second player to make her first two career tour-level level finals at a Grand Slam and Tier I\/WTA-1000 event since the format was introduced in 1990. (Amelie Mauresmo: Berlin 1998 and Australian Open 1999; Anna Kournikova: Key Biscayne 1998 and Hilton Head 1999).<\/p>\n
4: Chwalinska could join Naomi Osaka (Indian Wells 2018), Bianca Andreescu (Indian Wells 2019) and Victoria Mboko (Montreal 2025) as the fourth player to win their first title at the WTA 1000 level since 2009.<\/p>\n
7:\u00a0Chwalinska is the first left-handed player to reach a Grand Slam and WTA 1000 final since Petra Kvitova seven years ago in 2019.<\/p>\n
Kartal<\/p>\n
3:\u00a0Since the format\u2019s introduction in 1990, Kartal is the second British player to advance to Tier I\/WTA-1000 final after Johanna Konta (Beijing 2016, Miami 2017, Rome 2019).<\/p>\n
7: After a six-month injury layoff following Indian Wells, Kartal is 7-1 in tour-level matches since returning to the WTA Tour. She advanced to the Round of 32 in Beijing<\/p>\n
170:\u00a0Among ranked players since 1990, Sonay Kartal, World No. 170, is the lowest ranked player to make a Tier I\/WTA 1000 final (Jennifer Capriati reached the final as an unranked player in Hilton Head in 1990).<\/p>\n
What they had to say?<\/p>\n
Kartal<\/p>\n
1.\u00a0“Today was a dream come true. I’ve been shooting to get this far in one of these events for a very long time and to be able to do it this fast after so long out.<\/p>\n
2.\u00a0“In every match, I’ve kind of been the underdog in this event. I think the only pressure is kind of the pressure that I’m putting on myself, regardless of how long I spent out, I still expect to offer a good performance and very proud of what I’ve managed to achieve this week.<\/p>\n
“There’s a lot of first time things that I’ve managed to do. With each match, I’ve grown in confidence, and the atmosphere today was amazing.”<\/p>\n
Chwalinska<\/p>\n
To be updated after her semifinal press conference<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WUHAN — When World No. 170 Sonay Kartal, who is only two tournaments removed from a six-month injury…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":937715,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593,5452],"class_list":["post-937714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=937714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/937715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=937714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=937714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=937714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}