Jasmine Paolini had to summon all of her grit to keep her hopes of qualifying for the WTA Finals Riyadh this week alive, coming through a 3-hour, 22-minute match to defeat No. 6 seed Belinda Bencic 5-7, 7-5, 6-3 in the AUX Ningbo Open quarterfinals.

Ningbo: Scores | Draws | Order of play

The Italian is now one win away from guaranteeing her spot in Riyadh. She’ll need to defeat Elena Rybakina in the semifinals after the No. 3 seed kept her own chances of making the year-end finale alive with an efficient 6-2, 6-0 rout of qualifier Ajla Tomljanovic.

Here’s how the qualification picture looks:

If Paolini wins the semifinal: She will qualify for Riyadh, and the final spot will be decided between Rybakina and Mirra Andreeva next week.

If Rybakina wins the semifinal: The last two places will remain open, with Paolini, Rybakina and Andreeva still in contention.

Paolini and Rybakina are both entered in next week’s Toray Pan Pacific Open, while Andreeva would need a wild card to compete.

For Bencic, an alternate position at the WTA Finals had still been a possibility ahead of the match. However, her loss combined with No. 4 seed Ekaterina Alexandrova’s 6-3, 6-3 win over McCartney Kessler meant that World No. 10 Alexandrova was confirmed as an alternate.

How are Paolini and Rybakina dealing with the pressure?

After defeating Veronika Kudermetova in the second round, Paolini said she is trying not to think about Riyadh and instead focusing on the match at hand. She reiterated that after ovrecoming Bencic.

“Of course it’s in my mind, but when I step on court I try to think about the tennis,” she said. “If I want to qualify, I have to play good matches, I have to win matches. It’s not easy, but I try to focus on my tennis and let’s see what happens.”

For Rybakina, who cannot seal her spot outright this week even with a title, it’s still too distant a goal.

“I know for this I still need to win a lot of matches, not only here but also next week,” she said. “I just try to finish the season as best as possible, but the most important is always to be healthy. This season has been very long and not that successful for me, but I still think pretty decent.”

Paolini leads their head-to-head 3-2, including a victory in their only completed match on hard courts to date — a 7-6(5), 6-4 win at last year’s WTA Finals Riyadh, their most recent encounter.

Paolini wins longest match of her season: Paolini had to come from a set and a break down twice to stop Bencic, who served for the match at 5-4 in the second set. The match was the longest of Paolini’s year, ahead of her 2-hour, 47-minute loss to Amanda Anisimova in the Beijing quarterfinals, and the joint-11th longest match of the WTA season overall. It was the first time Paolini had exceeded the three-hour mark in over three years — since the 2022 Palermo quarterfinals, where she defeated Nuria Parrizas Diaz in 3 hours and 6 minutes.

Bencic had been the victor in the year’s longest match just one round previously, a 3-hour, 33-minute defeat of Yuliia Starodubtseva on Wednesday. The Swiss player required a medical timeout down 4-3 in the decider, and ended the match with her movement visibly hampered.

“One of the toughest matches I ever played, honestly,” Paolini said in her on-court interview. “Belinda, she’s an amazing player and a very good person. Today she deserved to win as well, so it was really tough. I’m happy I stayed there, because at the beginning I had too many mistakes. I couldn’t find my best tennis, but then I just tried to stay there every point and turn the match somehow.”

Two crucial marathon games: A fine lob enabled Paolini to take an early lead, and the No. 2 seed held triple-game point for 3-0 — only to be denied as Bencic put together a five-point run to get a foothold in the match. Though a sequence of five straight breaks towards the end of the first set increased the tension, ultimately Paolini was always chasing as Bencic delivered superior offensive tennis.

Bencic struck 15 winners to Paolini’s seven in the opening set, and from 2-0 down won nine of the next 12 games to take a 2-1 lead with a break in the second set.

The next game would be one of two key multi-deuce tussles in the second set, both of which Paolini won. Bencic held five points for a 3-1 lead, but was unable to get over the line. Unleashing with her forehand, Paolini navigated eight deuces to convert her fifth break point of the game.

Bencic broke again at 4-4 but, serving for the match, was foiled by some of Paolini’s best tennis — most remarkably, a flicked crosscourt backhand angle from outside the tramlines to seal a love break. Another seven-deuce marathon followed, this time on Paolini’s serve. The 29-year-old managed to fend off six break points in it, and held with three consecutive unreturned deliveries.

Having lost nine out of 12 games earlier in the match, Paolini ended up finishing it off by winning nine out of 12 from 5-4 down in the second set. Bencic threw in an error-strewn service game to lose the second set, then faded physically towards in the closing stages as Paolini continued to surge.

Forty-seven three-hour tour-level matches this season to date

Here are all of 2025’s three-hour WTA main draw matches so far (as of October 17): 

1. Belinda Bencic d. Yuliia Starodubtseva 5-7, 6-4, 7-5, Ningbo R2 (3:33)
2. Coco Gauff d. Zheng Qinwen 7-6(3), 4-6, 7-6(4), Rome SF (3:32)
3. Viktorija Golubic d. Arantxa Rus 7-5, 4-6, 7-6(10), Cluj-Napoca R1 (3:30)
4. Maria Sakkari d. Ashlyn Krueger 7-6(5), 6-7(5), 7-5, Beijing R1 (3:29)
5. Ella Seidel d. Beatriz Haddad Maia 6-7(4), 7-6(3), 7-5, Seoul R2 (3:28)
6. Lucia Bronzetti d. Zhu Lin 6-7(6), 6-2, 7-6(6), Cincinnati R1 (3:27)
7. Laura Siegemund d. Tatjana Maria 7-5, 6-7(6), 7-6(2), Montreal R1 (3:26)
8. Tatjana Maria d. Chloe Paquet 6-7(5), 7-5, 6-4, Bogota R1 (3:25)
T9. Aliaksandra Sasnovich d. Varvara Gracheva 6-4, 6-7(5), 7-6[8], Wimbledon R1 (3:24)
T9. Lois Boisson d. Dalma Galfi 7-6(6), 5-7, 6-2, Beijing R1 (3:24)
T11. Gao Xinyu d. Beatriz Haddad Maia 5-7, 6-4, 7-5, United Cup RR (3:22)
T11. Jasmine Paolini d. Belinda Bencic 5-7, 7-5, 6-3, Ningbo QF (3:22)
T13. Daria Kasatkina d. Peyton Stearns 7-6(7), 4-6, 7-5, Brisbane R2 (3:21)
T13. Liudmila Samsonova d. Jessica Pegula 6-7(8), 7-5, 7-6(5), Berlin R2 (3:21)
T13. Diane Parry d. Tara Wuerth 7-6(9), 3-6, 7-5, Hamburg R1 (3:21)
T16. Emma Navarro d. Peyton Stearns 6-7(5), 7-6(5), 7-5, Australian Open R1 (3:20)
T16. Wang Xinyu d. Jil Teichmann 6-7(5), 7-6(5), 6-4, Singapore QF (3:20)
T18. Laura Siegemund d. Hailey Baptiste 4-6, 7-5, 6-4, Australian Open R1 (3:16)
T18. Jaqueline Cristian d. Leylah Fernandez 5-7, 7-6(5), 6-3, Indian Wells R2 (3:16)
T18. Yuliia Starodubtseva d. Wang Yafan 6-7(4), 6-4, 6-4, Montreal R1 (3:16)
T21. Yulia Putintseva d. Diana Shnaider 7-6(3), 6-7(9), 6-4, Adelaide QF (3:14)
T21. Harriet Dart d. Jana Fett 7-5, 2-6, 7-6[7], Australian Open R1 (3:14)
23. Rebecca Sramkova d. Laura Siegemund 7-6(2), 4-6, 7-6(6), Nottingham R1 (3:13)
T24. Jule Niemeier d. Laura Siegemund 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, Stuttgart R1 (3:12)
T24. Magdalena Frech d. Sara Errani 7-5, 4-6, 7-6(5), Stuttgart R1 (3:12)
T24. Emiliana Arango d. Viktoriya Tomova 7-6(6), 5-7, 6-4, Rome R1 (3:12)
T24. Leylah Fernandez d. Elena Rybakina 6-7(2), 7-6(3), 7-6(3), Washington SF (3:12)
T28. Clara Tauson d. Caroline Dolehide 3-6, 7-5, 6-4, Washington R2 (3:10)
T28. Renata Zarazua d. Madison Keys 6-7(10), 7-6(3), 7-5, US Open R1 (3:10)
T30. Aryna Sabalenka d. Emma Raducanu 7-6(3), 4-6, 7-6(5), Cincinnati R3 (3:09)
T30. Moyuka Uchijima d. Olga Danilovic 7-6(2), 4-6, 7-6[9], US Open R1 (3:09)
32. Anastasia Zakharova d. Kimberly Birrell 5-7, 6-4, 6-3, Cleveland R1 (3:08)
33. Jessica Bouzas Maneiro d. Louisa Chirico 5-7, 7-5, 6-4, Montreal R1 (3:06)
T34. Katie Volynets d. Erika Andreeva 6-4, 6-7(6), 6-2, Auckland R1 (3:05)
T34. Leolia Jeanjean d. Yuliia Starodubtseva 7-5, 1-6, 6-4, Cincinnati R1 (3:05)
36. Barbora Krejcikova d. Taylor Townsend 1-6, 7-6(13), 6-3, US Open R4 (3:04)
T37. Cristina Bucsa d. Emma Raducanu 5-7, 7-5, 7-5, Singapore R1 (3:03)
T37. Belinda Bencic d. Beatriz Haddad Maia 6-3, 4-6, 7-6(2), Madrid R3 (3:03)
T37. Jaqueline Cristian d. Camila Osorio 6-7(6), 6-4, 6-4, Rabat SF (3:03)
40. Beatriz Haddad Maia d. Emma Navarro 3-6, 7-6(3), 6-2, Strasbourg QF (3:02)
T41. Sorana Cirstea d. Emma Navarro 7-6(5), 3-6, 7-5, Dubai R3 (3:01)
T41. Camila Osorio d. Ann Li 7-5, 6-7(5), 7-5, Beijing R1 (3:01)
T41. Laura Siegemund d. Mirra Andreeva 6-7(4), 6-3, 6-3, Wuhan R2 (3:01)
T44. Destanee Aiava d. Greet Minnen 5-7, 7-5, 7-6[6], Australian Open R1 (3:00)
T44. Anna Bondar d. Noma Noha Akugue 6-4, 3-6, 7-6(3), Hamburg R1 (3:00)
T44. Ajla Tomljanovic d. Renata Zarazua 4-6, 6-3, 7-6(1), Monterrey R1 (3:00)
T44. Diana Shnaider d. Elise Mertens 3-6, 7-6(6), 7-6(4), Monterrey QF (3:00)