Before arriving in New York last month for US Open qualifying, Janice Tjen had won 45 of her last 50 professional matches.<\/p>\n
During that stretch, she reached nine ITF finals, winning six, and climbed more than 200 spots in the rankings — from No. 371 to No. 149.<\/p>\n
S\u00e3o Paulo: Scores<\/a> | Draws<\/a> | Order of play<\/a><\/p>\n But even after bursting onto the scene with a first-round win over Veronika Kudermetova in her Grand Slam and WTA debut, questions lingered about how she\u2019d adapt to life on the main tour.<\/p>\n Those questions have now been answered.<\/p>\n Tjen defeated Francesca Jones 7-6 (0), 6-3 in 1 hour and 32 minutes Saturday in S\u00e3o Paulo to reach her first WTA final.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s special,\u201d Tjen said after the match. \u201cIt\u2019s my first WTA tournament outside of a Grand Slam, and being able to reach the final is a bonus. But at the end of the day, it\u2019s just another match so I\u2019ll see how I do tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n With the win, the 23-year-old became only the third Indonesian to reach a WTA final in the Open era, following in the footsteps of Yayuk Basuki and Angelique Widjaja.<\/p>\n It also marked Tjen\u2019s 63rd victory of the season — and her 58th on hard courts.<\/p>\n A key to the win? Her much-improved serve. Tjen finished with eight aces, which she credited to the work she\u2019s been putting in behind the scenes.<\/p>\n \u201cMe and my coach have been working on my serve almost every day,\u201d Tjen said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s nice to see it paying off little by little.\u201d<\/p>\n In addition to the uptick in aces, Tjen won roughly 90% of points on her first serve and was an even more impressive 71% on second-serve points.<\/p>\n While those numbers may be tough to replicate in Sunday\u2019s final, she\u2019ll aim to match them when she faces Tiantsoa Rakotomanga Rajaonah for the title.<\/p>\n They have yet to face each other in their careers.<\/p>\n Rakotomanga Rajaonah shows hard-court mettle<\/p>\n Known for her prowess on clay, French phenom Tiantsoa Rakotomanga Rajaonah is proving she\u2019s more than a clay court specialist.<\/p>\n The 19-year-old defeated Renata Zarazua 6-3, 6-2 in 1 hour and 20 minutes Saturday on Quadra Central Maria Esther Bueno to advance to her first WTA final.<\/p>\n Her victory — her third over a Mexican opponent this week — guarantees a first-time WTA title winner in S\u00e3o Paulo.<\/p>\n \u201cI try to be really aggressive while also being really focused on what I\u2019m doing,\u201d Rakotomanga Rajaonah said after the match. \u201cNo pressure, just go for it.\u201d<\/p>\n She practiced what she preached, playing fearlessly from the start. She ripped 29 winners to Zarazua\u2019s four and, after breaking for a 3-2 lead in the first set, never gave Zarazua any real hope of getting back in the match.<\/p>\n She\u2019ll need that same approach against Tjen.<\/p>\n Regardless of the result, it\u2019s been a breakthrough week for the Frenchwoman, who entered the tournament with a WTA 250 quarterfinal and a W100 final on her r\u00e9sum\u00e9 — but little hard-court success this season.<\/p>\n In fact, if Rakotomanga Rajaonah wins Sunday, it will be her first career title on a hard court at any professional level.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before arriving in New York last month for US Open qualifying, Janice Tjen had won 45 of her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135664,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,1602,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-135663","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-text","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}