Leylah Fernandez lost the first set to Ekaterina Alexandrova and then won 12 of the last 15 games, beating her 4-6, 6-2, 6-1 on Friday to reach the semifinals of the Ningbo Open. It is Fernandez’s second semifinal of the season, and the win came against last year’s Ningbo runner-up. The Canadian, who won the Singapore title last month, has now won 12 of her last 15 matches.

Alexandrova took the opening set, but Fernandez controlled play from the start of the second and never let the Russian back into the match. The last two sets took 15 games, and Alexandrova won three of them. It was Fernandez’s second straight win over Alexandrova after a 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 victory in the first round in Wuhan, and it squared their head-to-head at 3-3. Fernandez reached the quarterfinals with a three-set win over Aliaksandra Sasnovich on Wednesday.

Her opponent on Saturday is Marie Bouzková, who beat fellow Czech Sara Bejlek 6-3, 6-4. Bouzková had the first set in hand, but Bejlek broke her twice to lead 3-0 in the second. Bouzková then won five games in a row and closed out the match in straight sets. It is her third semifinal of 2026, and the first two ended in titles, in Bogotá and on the grass in Nottingham, where she beat Emma Navarro in June in the longest match of the WTA season. Bouzková won her only previous meeting with Fernandez, in the first round in Toronto in 2019.

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Marta Kostyuk retired from her second-round match at the Ningbo Open on Wednesday after losing the first set 6-4 to Ekaterina Alexandrova, and the last singles place at the WTA Finals went to Karolína Muchová, who is not playing this week. Kostyuk, the #3 seed, needed to reach the final in Ningbo to overtake Muchová in the race. Her exit settled the field for the season-ending championships in Indian Wells from November 8 to 15.

Kostyuk had a first-round bye and was playing her first match of the week. She took a medical timeout for her wrist with Alexandrova leading 5-4 and about to serve for the set. Alexandrova held to close it out, and Kostyuk stopped there. The wrist had troubled the Ukrainian earlier in the season, and the pain returned in Ningbo.

Muchová, the Wimbledon runner-up to Linda Nosková in July, began the week seventh in the race and spent it idle while Kostyuk and Iga Świątek chased her. Świątek, the #2 seed in Ningbo, withdrew with a thigh injury on Tuesday and ended her season, and the alternate Anastasia Zakharova took her place in the draw. Muchová joins Elena Rybakina, Aryna Sabalenka, Mirra Andreeva, Jessica Pegula, Coco Gauff, Elina Svitolina and Nosková.

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Iga Świątek will not play again in 2026. The world #9 withdrew from the BNB Ningbo Open on Tuesday with a left thigh injury and ended her season, a decision that takes her out of the race for the last open place at the WTA Finals.

The thigh had been a problem for weeks. It was already bothering her in her Wuhan semifinal last week, a loss to fellow Pole Maja Chwalińska, who went on to win the title. Świątek came to Ningbo as the #2 seed, and alternate Anastasia Zakharova took her place in the draw. Chwalińska has also withdrawn from Ningbo, with a left thigh injury of her own.

Świątek finishes the year 39-15 with one title, in Toronto. She called the season one of the most demanding of her career, said she was proud of the progress she made in its second half and said she would take a longer break than usual to recover fully before returning next year.

Her exit reshapes the end of the Race. Seven players have already qualified for the eight-woman singles field at Indian Wells in November: Elena Rybakina, Aryna Sabalenka, Mirra Andreeva, Jessica Pegula, Coco Gauff, Elina Svitolina and Linda Nosková. Karolína Muchová holds the last place for now, seventh in the Race with 4,735 points but not yet qualified. Świątek was ninth with 4,189 points, 546 behind Muchová, and was still in contention when she withdrew.

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Belinda Bencic's losing run is over, cut short by an opponent who could not continue. The #5 seed led Jeļena Ostapenko 6-3, 1-1 when the Latvian retired from their first-round match at the BNB Ningbo Open on Tuesday, sending Bencic into the second round after defeats at the WTA 1000 events in Beijing and Wuhan.

Ostapenko came to Ningbo a week after reaching the semifinals in Wuhan, but she was struggling physically long before the end. She needed a medical timeout in the first set, when her vitals and blood pressure were checked. She held serve to open the second set, and once Bencic had leveled at 1-1, she retired.

The first set had already shown how quickly the match could swing. Bencic broke early and raced to a 3-0 lead before Ostapenko won two straight games to close to 3-2, and the Swiss broke again to take the set 6-3. Bencic plays Katarzyna Kawa of Poland next for a place in the quarterfinals.

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