Australia’s world no. 53 has upset Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-Wei to advance to her third WTA career final The no.2 seed Kiki Bertens from the Netherlands now stands in the way of Tomljanovic’s first WTA title.
The Australian lost in the final of the Morocco Open in May 2018 and the Thailand Open in February 2015.
In Seoul, Tomljanovic defeated the no.6 seed Hsieh Su-Wei 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 to reach the final. Just last week Hsieh had won the title in Hiroshima where the world no. 29 defeated Tomljanovic in the quarterfinals, winning set the final two sets 6-2, 6-0.
Hsieh was on top early after breaking to love for a 3-1 lead. At 4-2, 30-30 it was a key moment as Hsieh had Tomljanovich on the run and then hit a shot wide as she approached the net. From there Tomljanovic ran off four straight games to take the first set.
In the second set, it was the reverse situation with the Australian out to a 4-2 lead. Tomljanovic was up 30-0 and then ended up getting broken twice from there to lose the set 7-5.
Tomljanovic jumped out to a 2-1 lead with an early break in the third set and on her third break point at 3-1 the former Croatian converted to take a 4-1 lead with a double break. Hsieh would get one service break back before Tomljanovic served out the match to love and with that ended her opponents eight-match win streak.
“It’s going to be a tough match again, but I’m just going to prepare as best as I can, and just focus on a few things that I can do better, which I didn’t do over the last few matches,” Bertens said when talking about her upcoming match against Tomljanovic.
It will be a tough match for Tomljanovich against Bertens as she has played a tough three-set match in every round to reach the final. Bertens has only dropped one set, which was in the quarterfinals.
