Number 7 seeds Timea Babos and Luisa Stefani came back from a break down to beat Hsieh Su-Wei and Jelena Ostapenko 6-4 7-6 (7-5) in the semifinal to reach the championships match of the WTA Finals in Ryiadh on their debut as a doubles team.
Stefani becomes the first Brazilian player in history to reach the final at the WTA Final. Babos won three WTA Finals doubles titles in her career. The Hungarian player has reached her fourth final with a third different partner. She had previously won this title alongside Andrea Sestini Hlavackova in 2017 and Kristina Mladenovic in 2018 and 2019.
Hsieh and Ostapenko broke serve in the third game of the opening set to take a 2-1 lead. Babos and Stefani broke back in the sixth game to draw level to 3-3. Babos and Stefani closed out the first set 6-4 with a break in the 10th game. Hsieh and Ostapenko broke in the sixth game of the second set and held serve in the next game to take a 4-2 lead. Stefani and Babos broke back in the eighth game of the second set to draw level to 4-4. Ostapenko and Hsieh saved the first two match points while they were trailing 5-4.
Babos and Stefani went up a 5-2 lead in the tie-break with two mini-breaks. Hsieh and Ostapenko pulled back on serve to draw level to 5-5. Ostapenko netted a forehand at 5-5. Babos converted the third match point with a service winner to seal the win 7-5.
“I never lost in a semifinal of the WTA Finals before, so I’m just keeping that. I’m very proud of us”, said Babos.
