The Asian Swing got underway last week with a WTA 500 tournament in Singapore and a WTA 250 event in Seoul.<\/p>\n
Both champions added another chapter to their success in Asia on the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz. In Singapore, Leylah Fernandez captured her third title on the continent, following wins in Hong Kong in 2023 and Osaka in 2025. It was the sixth title of her career and her second at the WTA 500 level.<\/p>\n
Fernandez\u2019s run included a second win over Mirra Andreeva in as many months in the quarterfinals, followed by a comeback victory over Roland Garros finalist Maja Chwalinska in the semifinals.<\/p>\n
Fernandez arrived in Singapore at 17-22 for the season (17-21 in tour-level matches) without a semifinal appearance in 2026. She leaves with a 22-21 main-draw record and a rise from No. 31 to No. 26 in this week\u2019s PIF WTA Rankings.<\/p>\n
It is the second straight year Fernandez has found her best form late. Through Wimbledon in 2025, she was 13-16 at tour level before titles in Washington and Osaka helped her finish the season 31-24.<\/p>\n
Chwalinska also leaves Singapore with a needed lift. Since her qualifying run to the Roland Garros final, she had gone 1-5 across the grass and hard-court swings. The 23-year-old earned her first Top 20 win over Elise Mertens to reach a second WTA semifinal, then moved up four places to equal her career-best ranking at No. 21.<\/p>\n
Birrell, Joint, Gibson spearhead Australian surge<\/p>\n
Kimberly Birrell\u2019s best results have often come in Asia. Before Seoul, the 28-year-old had finished runner-up in Osaka in 2024 and Chennai in 2025. This time, she broke through for her first WTA title, defeating fellow Australian Maya Joint in the first all-Australian final since Samantha Stosur beat Daria Saville in Strasbourg in 2017.<\/p>\n
It was only the fourth all-Australian WTA final since 1979. That nine-year wait since Strasbourg was notable, though hardly unprecedented. Australia produced regular all-country finals in the 1970s, then waited 13 years after Evonne Goolagong Cawley beat Dianne Fromholtz in Minneapolis in 1979 for Nicole Provis\u2019 1992 Brisbane win over Rachel McQuillan.<\/p>\n
Another 13 years passed before Alicia Molik defeated Stosur in the 2005 Sydney final. Twelve more years elapsed before Stosur and Saville met in Strasbourg.<\/p>\n
Australia\u2019s players made their mark across both events last week. Alongside Birrell and Joint\u2019s all-Australian final in Seoul, 22-year-old Talia Gibson reached her first career final in Singapore. Taylah Preston, 20, upset top seed Jelena Ostapenko to make the Seoul quarterfinals, her first Top 50 win since she beat Emma Raducanu during her run to the Hobart semifinals in January.<\/p>\n
Gibson and Birrell make their Top 50 debuts in this week\u2019s PIF WTA Rankings. Gibson climbs 26 places from No. 63 to No. 37, while Birrell rises 19 spots from No. 60 to No. 41. They are the 16th and 17th players to break into the Top 50 for the first time in 2026. Preston also reaches a new career high, moving from No. 94 to No. 91.<\/p>\n
Joint had entered Seoul at 8-20 for the season at tour level and had won consecutive matches only twice. The 20-year-old had fallen from her career-high No. 28 in February to No. 99, but a third career final sends her back up 24 places to No. 75.<\/p>\n
Prozorova, Korneeva up to new career highs<\/p>\n
Prior to Singapore, Tatiana Prozorova had just two tour-level wins under her belt (making the second round at Palermo 2023 and Memphis 2026), and one victory over a Top 50 player — Tatjana Maria at the Manila WTA 125 in January. But, ranked No. 180, the 22-year-old put together a remarkable run to the Singapore semifinals with a trio of marathon wins that each clocked in around the three-hour mark.<\/p>\n
Prozorova came from a set and a break down to defeat Sofia Costoulas and Alexandra Eala — the latter her first Top 20 win — before edging Wang Xinyu in another comeback, taking her on-court time in three singles matches to 9 hours and 1 minute. An injury sustained in her doubles quarterfinal meant she had to withdraw from the semifinals due to concussion, but Prozorova nonetheless soars 57 places to a new career high of No. 123 this week.<\/p>\n
In Seoul, former junior No. 1 Alina Korneeva continued her breakthrough season by reaching her second career tour-level semifinal (following Merida 2024). The 19-year-old was forced to retire due to a left thigh injury while trailing Joint 6-2, 1-0, but she also climbs 13 places to a new career high of No. 69 this week.<\/p>\n
Timofeeva, Grabher, Cengiz boosted by WTA 125 titles<\/p>\n
Three WTA 125 tournaments took place last week — on hard courts in Porto, Portugal and Ankara, T\u00fcrkiye and on clay in Tolentino, Italy.<\/p>\n
In Porto, Maria Timofeeva of Uzbekistan captured her third WTA 125 title of the season, following victories in Istanbul in May and Makarska in June. The 22-year-old defeated NCAA champion Reese Brantmeier 7-6(8), 6-2 in the final and rises 20 places to a career-high No. 68.<\/p>\n
Brantmeier, 21, also reaches a new career high, jumping 93 spots to No. 293 after coming through qualifying to reach the final. Her run included the first Top 100 win of her career, a 6-3, 6-0 semifinal victory over Sinja Kraus.<\/p>\n
Mia Pohankova, the 2025 Wimbledon girls\u2019 singles champion, reached the semifinals before falling to Timofeeva 6-2, 6-7(3), 6-3. The 17-year-old from Slovakia makes her Top 200 debut this week, rising 19 places to No. 193.<\/p>\n
In Tolentino, Austria’s Julia Grabher claimed her third career WTA 125 title (following Bari 2022 and Florianopolis 2025), defeating Spain’s Guiomar Maristany Zuleta De Reales 7-6(5), 6-2 in the final. The 30-year-old is up 12 places to No. 99, returning to the Top 100 for the first time since April. Maristany Zuleta De Reales, 27, rises 25 places to a new career high of No. 145 after reaching her first WTA 125 final.<\/p>\n
In Ankara, 26-year-old Berfu Cengiz spearheaded a superb tournament for home players by lifting her first WTA 125 trophy, edging Teodora Kostovic 2-6, 6-4, 7-5 in the final. Cengiz reached her career high of No. 190 at the end of 2024, only to be sidelined by an ACL injury for the next six months; her ranking slipped down to No. 565 by September last year. Winning Ankara is a significant boost — Cengiz soars 82 places from No. 307 to No. 225 this week. Meanwhile, 19-year-old Serb Kostovic is up 20 spots to a new career high of No. 139 after reaching her first WTA 125 final.<\/p>\n
Teenage wild card Deniz Dilek also impressed in Ankara. The 19-year-old, who currently plays college tennis for the University of Georgia, stunned top seed Solana Sierra 6-3, 6-3 in the first round for her first Top 100 win. Dilek went all the way to her first semifinal above W15 level, where she fell 6-1, 6-1 to Cengiz in an all-Turkish derby. She rockets up 233 places from No. 786 to No. 553 this week.<\/p>\n
Other notable rankings movements<\/p>\n
Joanna Garland, +25 to No. 143:\u00a0Garland qualified and made the second round of Singapore, her first tour-level win since making the 2025 Chennai semifinals.<\/p>\n
Nao Hibino, +33 to No. 157:\u00a0Former No. 56 Hibino also made the Singapore second round as a qualifier, her first tour-level win since Roland Garros 2025.<\/p>\n
Ma Yexin, +14 to No. 161:\u00a0The Chinese 27-year-old is up to a new career high after qualifying for Seoul and defeating former junior No. 1 Emerson Jones to make the second round.<\/p>\n
Ku Yeonwoo, +10 to No. 175:\u00a0The 23-year-old claimed her first tour-level win over Alevtina Ibragimova in Seoul, and was one of three South Koreans to make the second round. The last time that three South Koreans all won matches at a WTA tournament was at Rio de Janeiro 1984.<\/p>\n
Darya Astakhova, +16 to No. 187:\u00a0Playing her 10th WTA qualifying draw in Seoul, Astakhova made it to the main draw for the first time — then saved two match points against Magda Linette to notch her first Top 75 win.<\/p>\n
Ane Mintegi Del Olmo, +25 to No. 239:\u00a02021 Wimbledon junior champion Mintegi Del Olmo collected her third and biggest World Tennis title of the year at last week’s Plovdiv W50. The 22-year-old Spaniard is up to a new career high.<\/p>\n
Hiromi Abe, +79 to No. 277:\u00a0The Japanese 26-year-old is on a 10-match winning streak after back-to-back World Tennis titles on home soil at the Kyoto W35 and Nanao W50.<\/p>\n
Park Sohyun, +25 to No. 304:\u00a0Park, 24, upset Robin Montgomery on home soil in Seoul to score her first tour-level victory.<\/p>\n
Charo Esquiva Banuls, +225 to No. 544:\u00a0Former junior No. 9 Esquiva Banuls claimed her first professional title at last week’s Yecla W50. The Spanish 18-year-old vaults to a new career high.<\/p>\n
Janae Preston, +191 to No. 589:\u00a0Junior No. 6 Preston reached her second and biggest World Tennis final to date as a qualifier at the Berkeley W50 last week. The 16-year-old American was playing just her ninth professional event, and defeated Wimbledon junior champion Anna Pushkareva in the first round before falling to Kayla Day in the title match.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Asian Swing got underway last week with a WTA 500 tournament in Singapore and a WTA 250…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":785399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,1602,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-785398","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\/785398","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=785398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/785399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=785398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=785398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=785398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}