The Fage WTA Finals title match will come down to a second showdown this week between Mirra Andreeva and Elina Svitolina. The two played each other in the round robin stage, when the Russian won 6-4 6-0. Before that match, their head-to-head was an even 1:1 of two-set matches. It is by no means a foregone conclusion what might happen Sunday at Indian Wells. While the 19-year-old has had an impressive run, the Ukrainian has picked up steam too, sending home Aryna Sabalenka and Karolina Muchova.
Andreeva beat Jess Pegula 6-3 6-4 in the semifinals. She was understandably enthusiastic about her success here in the desert: “I’m feeling very excited. Super happy with how I have been playing here so far. Of course, the job is not done yet, so one last push for tomorrow. So I’m super excited.”
This is the new world No. 2’s debut WTA Finals, and she has already run into the unique feature of playing someone repeatedly. To address this, she told reporters that the experience of her coach Conchita Martinez will be an important resource: “I will try to rely on a little bit more on Conchita in this case because I feel like she has a lot of experience and she can try to give me some tips and some advice as to maybe how to approach this much better–if I should change anything or if we just stick to the game plan that worked before.”
Elina Svitolina reached the title match with a 6-2 6-1 victory over Wimbledon champion Linda Noskova. The Ukrainian was equally thrilled and surprised at her success at the tournament. Speaking with media after the match, she described herself as “very, very happy with the performance. I just didn’t expect to be in the finals, to be fair. So, just very pleased with the performance, and bouncing back after the first match just means so much.”
In the post match press conference, a reporter asked the 2018 Finals champion what she would do tactically against Andreeva. Svitolina laughed and said the media will post it online so she would not give us a detailed answer, but she did clarify some areas that could be worked on: “I’m gonna do my homework and improve a few things, on the return, on my serve, on the baseline, just alround. We are playing at the WTA Finals with the best players, so of course you need to get better at everything to win matches and to perform at the best, because you know, there’s small difference that can make a big difference in the whole match.”
The final will be played Sunday at 12:00 local time.
The singles match will be followed by the doubles final:
(2) Katerina Siniakova (Czech Republic) & Taylor Townsend (USA) vs (8) Sara Errani (Italy) & Jasmine Paolini (Italy)
