Tennis Olympic champion Belinda Bencic from Switzerland and the top seeded Tunisian Ons Jabeur have reached the final of the lawn tournament in Berlin.
The 25-year-old Bencic defeated Maria Sakkari from Greece in 3:07 hours 6:7 (6:8), 6:4, 6:4 and has the chance of her second WTA title of the year. With more than 30 degrees in the Steffi Graf Stadium, Jabeur, fourth in the world rankings, beat French Open finalist Coco Gauff from the USA 7: 6 (7: 4), 6: 2 in the second semifinal.
Bencic had already reached the final at the event, which was endowed with 709,000 euros, last year, in 2021 she lost to Lyudmila Samsonowa from Russia. Against Sakkari, Bencic unluckily lost the first set through a net roll, but fought back and won the at times high-quality match against the number two seeded Greek. “Of course it was difficult, I played three sets four times, but I don’t do that extra,” said Bencic and joked because of the heat: “Berlin always turns on the heating at the weekend. That was the case last year.”
Bencic had already prevailed against Jabeur in the Charleston final – now the duel will be repeated. In the second semi-final in Berlin, Jabeur and Gauff initially fought a close duel. After winning the first set, the Tunisian quickly pulled away to 3-0 in the second round and converted her second match point after 1:17 hours. As the last German participant, Andrea Petkovic was eliminated in the round of 16.
In doubles, former Wimbledon finalist Sabine Lisicki and her partner Bianca Andreescu from Canada missed out on making the final. The tennis duo lost in the semifinals on grass to top seed Storm Sanders from Australia and Katerina Siniakova from the Czech Republic in 61 minutes 6-1, 6-3.