Leylah Fernandez overcame a late first-set deficit to defeat Rebecca Sramkova 7-6 (2), 6-3 in 1 hour and 34 minutes on Friday at the Kinoshita Group Japan Open in Osaka, advancing to the semifinals.<\/p>\n
Osaka: Scores<\/a> | Draws<\/a> | Order of play<\/a><\/p>\n The No. 4 seed trailed by a break late in the first set but broke back to force a tiebreak, which she won decisively. She fell behind again early in the second set, down 2-0, but responded by winning four straight games to take control.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I was able to break back in the first set, that gave me momentum going into the tiebreaker,\u201d Fernandez said after the match. \u201cIn the second set, she started strong and I knew it was going to happen, but I\u2019m glad I stayed positive and continued putting pressure on her while enjoying the battle.\u201d<\/p>\n Fernandez will face Sorana Cirstea, who ended Viktorija Golubic’s seven-match winning streak 6-2, 2-6, 6-2, for a spot in the final.<\/p>\n Serving showcase: Fernandez won just three more total points than Sramkova (52-49), with both players refusing to give up many points on serve, especially in the first set.<\/p>\n Fernandez saved a break point in the opening game and didn\u2019t face another until 5-5. Though she was broken then, she immediately broke back to force the tiebreak, where she came from a mini-break down to win it and further showcased her serving prowess.<\/p>\n She landed 68% of her first serves and won 67% of those points in the first set. She also won 54% of second-serve points and faced only two break points. She\u2019d go on to face only one more break point in the second set. Sramkova placed 53% of her first serves in the first set, winning 72% of those points and 50% on her second serve.<\/p>\n Fast starts fuel success: Fernandez has now won the opening set in five of her past six matches, including all three in Osaka.\u00a0<\/p>\n She\u2019s 23-3 record this season when winning the first set, closing out 21 of those victories in straight sets.<\/p>\n One of those three losses came against Sramkova in Mexico in August. On Friday, Sramkova again threatened a comeback, saving three match points while trailing 5-3 in the second set, but Fernandez sealed the win with one final break.<\/p>\n What\u2019s next: Friday\u2019s match marked just the second meeting with Fernandez and Sramkova, leveling their head-to-head at 1-1.<\/p>\n Fernandez will next face Cirstea for the first time. A win in the semifinals would send Fernandez to her second final of the season and first since capturing the title in Washington, D.C., in July. Cirstea, who won her third career title in Cleveland in August, is also bidding to reach her second final of 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leylah Fernandez overcame a late first-set deficit to defeat Rebecca Sramkova 7-6 (2), 6-3 in 1 hour and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,1602,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-207072","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\/207072","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=207072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}