Sunday features the women’s singles semifinals, as well as the championship matches in both men’s and women’s doubles.
Iga Swiatek and Elena Rybakina share quite an interesting history, and contested an extremely tight match this past June at Roland Garros, with Swiatek narrowly prevailing 7-5 in the third. On Sunday, they meet again in the Cincinnati semifinals. The winner will face either Jasmine Paolini or Veronika Kudermetova, who play in the day’s second WTA singles semifinal.
Throughout the tournament, this preview will analyze the day’s two most prominent matches, while highlighting the other notable matches on the schedule. Sunday’s play gets underway at 1:00pm local time.
Elena Rybakina (9) vs. Iga Swiatek (3) – 1:00pm on Center Court
Swiatek leads their head-to-head 5-4 overall, and perhaps a bit surprisingly, by a bigger edge of 4-2 on hard courts. Rybakina has actually claimed two of their three meetings on Swiatek’s precious clay. Their last three encounters, all within the past year, have all gone to Iga, with the two hard court matchups going to Iga in straight sets.
Swiatek is now 47-12 in a season that was quite disappointing for the first five months of the year. After winning her fourth Roland Garros in June of 2024, Iga failed to win a WTA title for the next 52 weeks, or even reach a WTA final, which was especially surprising during the clay court season. But as soon as the pressure that comes with clay was off her shoulders, Swiatek had by far the best grass court season of her career: she advanced to the final of Bad Homburg, and went on to win Wimbledon. In Cincinnati, she’s comfortably won all six sets she’s contested.
Rybakina is 41-15 on the year, though similarly to Swiatek, she’s only reached one WTA final within the past 52 weeks, which came at a 250-level event in Strasbourg. This is a second consecutive semifinal for Elena, after losing a heartbreaker in Montreal to 18-year-old Canadian Victoria Mboko, in a semifinal decided by a final-set tiebreak. Rybakina held a match point during that third set, yet failed to convert it. But she’s rebounded strongly in Cincy, surviving a trio of three-setters before thumping World No.1 Aryna Sabalenka by a score of 6-1, 6-4.
One would think a faster surface would favor Elena, yet Iga is the player who has thrived on faster-playing hard courts in this rivalry, winning their last three matches on this surface in straights. So I favor a confident Swiatek to prevail again on Sunday.
Veronika Kudermetova vs. Jasmine Paolini (7) – Not Before 3:00pm on Center Court
Paolini outlasted Coco Gauff on Friday night in what can only be described as an extremely ugly match. It featured 14 service breaks, as both players struggled to hold serve. Gauff struck 16 double faults and an extraordinary 62 unforced errors, while in victory, Paolini hit only seven winners compared to an alarming 44 unforced errors. But Jasmine is the player that persevered, and did so despite injuring her ankle during the third set.
That was a noteworthy victory for the Italian, as Paolini had recently lost several matches after holding a considerable lead, including at Roland Garros when she was up a set and a break against Elina Svitolina. Jasmine won her other three matches this week in straights, as she now sets her sights on her third WTA 1000 final in singles.
This is a third WTA 1000 semifinal for Kudermetova, though she’s yet to advance farther at this level. Those two semis came back-to-back in 2023 on clay. This is quite a shocking result, as since those semifinals, Veronika had failed to advance beyond the third round at a WTA 1000 event. But she has taken advantage of an open draw in Cincy, winning five matches with the loss of only one set to this stage.
Considering Paolini’s ankle issue, and considering Kudermetova leads their tour-level head-to-head at 2-0, with two victories on hard courts in straight sets, I actually like Veronika’s chance of achieving the biggest singles final of her career. However, Veronika will have to maintain her composure and continue to play aggressively despite the nerves she’ll certainly be feeling.
Other Notable Matches on Sunday:
Lorenzo Musetti and Lorenzo Sonego vs. Nikola Mektic and Rajeev Ram (2) – The Lorenzos survived an extended deciding-set tiebreak in Saturday’s semifinals against Joe Salisbury and Neal Skupski. On the same day, Mektic and Ram ended the 22-match winning streak of recent Wimbledon champions Julian Cahs and Lloyd Glasspool.
Hanyu Guo and Alexandra Panova vs. Gabriela Dabrowski and Erin Routliffe (2) – Dabrowski and Routliffe were the 2023 US Open champions, but are 0-3 in WTA 1000 finals. Hanyu and Panova are playing for the biggest title of their relatively new partnership.
Sunday’s full Order of Play is here.
