A pair of three-set victories on a busy Saturday in Seoul sent Kimberly Birrell into her first final of 2026, as the Australian rallied from a set down to defeat Katie Volynets before knocking off No. 6 seed Anna Bondar 7-5, 2-6, 6-1 in 2 hours and 30 minutes.<\/p>\n
Seoul: Scores<\/a> | Order of play<\/a> | Draws<\/a><\/p>\n Awaiting Birrell in the final is fellow Aussie Maya Joint. After a difficult season following last year’s breakthrough, the 20-year-old advanced to her first semifinal of 2026 with a straight-sets victory over No. 3 seed Lanlana Tararudee. She then reached her first final of the year when Korneeva retired in the second set of their semifinal.<\/p>\n Joint led 6-1, 1-0 after 49 minutes when Korneeva retired. Korneeva had previously taken an off-court medical timeout while trailing 5-2 in the opening set.<\/p>\n The results have produced the first all-Australian WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz final since Strasbourg 2017 and only the third all-Australian final of the 21st century.<\/p>\n What’s at stake for Birrell<\/p>\n It will be the first meeting between Birrell and Joint. Birrell will be making her third final appearance as she searches for an elusive first title, while Joint will also be contesting her third final after winning each of her previous two.<\/p>\n Birrell entered the week at No. 60 in the PIF WTA Rankings, four spots below the career-high No. 56 she reached earlier this month. She is already in line for a Top 50 debut following her run in Seoul and could climb even higher with a win Sunday.<\/p>\n In addition to two WTA singles runner-up finishes, Birrell has been a runner-up twice in doubles at tour-level events and was a mixed doubles finalist at the 2025 Australian Open. Her two W75 titles remain the biggest trophies of her career, and she owns seven WTT titles overall.<\/p>\n What’s at stake for Joint<\/p>\n Joint entered the week on the verge of falling outside the Top 100. She arrived at No. 99 with a 12-22 record in 2026, with victories over Serena Williams at Wimbledon and Sorana Cirstea in Toronto among her few singles highlights.<\/p>\n Joint upsets Cirstea in Toronto to match best WTA 1000 effort<\/p>\n However, the Australian has enjoyed a standout year in doubles. She has reached three doubles finals with three different partners and won WTA 500 titles in Abu Dhabi and Monterrey. She achieved a career-high doubles ranking of No. 26 earlier this month, meaning she has already been both a Top 30 singles and doubles player.<\/p>\n If Joints defeats Birrell on Sunday, she will capture her third WTA singles title to go along with her three WTA doubles titles and further strengthen her status as one of the game’s top young talents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A pair of three-set victories on a busy Saturday in Seoul sent Kimberly Birrell into her first final…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":783569,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,1602,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-783568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-text","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783568","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=783568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}