Home » At the Citi Open, Kaia Kanepi will compete for the championship against Liudmila Samsonova.

On Sunday, Kaia Kanepi and Liudmila Samsonova will compete for the Citi Open championship. The final seed remaining in the Washington, DC, draw was sixth-seeded Kanepi. In their semifinal match, Kanepi defeated Daria Saville in 73 minutes, 6-3, 6-1.

The 37-year-old won 80% of her first-serve points despite placing only 49% of her first serves in. Saville, who delivered 56 percent of her first serves, was only able to score 50% of her points from them. Despite saving five break points on the Australian’s serve, Kanepi was only able to save one.

After announcing her victory, Kanepi continued, “I believe I played my best performance today. For me, everything went extremely smoothly. I believe I hit several lines. I believe today was a fantastic day for me because it’s difficult to do it every day.

The Estonians haven’t advanced to the WTA final in well than a year thanks to this victory. She competed in the Gippsland Trophy final in 2021 but ultimately fell to Elise Mertens.

Liudmila Samsonova’s merciless dominance at the Citi Open

Samsonova, who competed against Kanepi on Sunday, defeated China’s Xiyu Wang 6-1, 6-1.

In 67 minutes, Samsonova finished the game. Samsonova prevailed in 78 percent of her second-serve points and 84% of her first-serve points. On Wang’s second serve, she returned it and won 70% of the time. While converting five of the eight break points she had on her rival’s serve, she only faced one break point.

She earned 59 points overall, 29 more than Wang’s 30. A year after making it to her first final at the German Open in June 2021, Liudmila Samsonova will compete in her second career final at the Citi Open.

She overcame Belinda Bencic back then to win her maiden WTA championship. Samsonova has a slim 1-0 win-to-loss record versus Kaia Kanepi going into this matchup after defeating the latter at the 2021 Championships.