Badosa fell to Kasatkina

The Russian Daria Kasatkina, number 12 in the world ranking, defeated Paula Badosa 6-2 and 6-4 this Saturdaynumber 4 in the world, and she was denied a ticket for the final of the WTA 500 tournament in San José (California, USA).

Kasatkina regained the victory she achieved against Badosa in Rome in May and will play in the final in San José against American Shelby Rogerswinner this Saturday against Russian Veronika Kudermetova.

Badosa, who has not reached the semi-final since last April in Stuttgart, surrendered in one hour and 22 minutes to Kasatkina after a tournament in which she defeated, based on returns, the Americans Elizabeth Mandlik and Coco Gauff.

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The 24-year-old Catalan player beat Kasatkina on the hard in Sydney earlier in the year on her way to the title, but this time she ran into her rival’s resilience and succumbed without forcing her game.

The Russian reached his first finals of the year after falling in all four semifinals played so far.

Kasatkina started with authority and broke Badosa’s serve twicewithout conceding any ‘break’ opportunities, to win the first set 6-2.

The Spaniard can only win 50% of the points on the first serve and those difficulties were decisive in his defeat.

After coming back from 3-5 down in the deciding set against Mandlik, Badosa tried to react with the second sleevebut the illusion for an early break (2-0) almost lasted a few minutes.

Both players began to struggle especially to hold their respective serves and they traded breaks, but in the end it was Kasatkina who got the upper hand and stopped Badosa’s comeback attempts.

She earned the decisive ‘break’ at 4-4 on the scoreboard and canceled three break points at 5-4 to protect her ticket for this Sunday’s final against Shelby Rogers, after one hour and 22 minutes of play.

Rogers, on her way to the semifinals defeated the Greek Maria Sakkaritop seed, Bianca Andreescu and Amanda Anisimova, beat Russian Veronika Kudermetova 6-3, 6-4 and qualified for the third final of her career on the WTA circuit.

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Rogers and Kasatkina were tied one-on-one in previous meetingsincluding the Russian who beat him this year at Roland Garros, and the American who won in 2017 in Miami.

Badosa will compete again next week in the Toronto tournamentwhere she will debut directly in the second round against the winner of the match between Kazakh Yulia Putintseva (n.42) and Canadian Katherine Sebov (n.296).

The Spaniard continues to show brilliant numbers this season, where he won 29 games, and since 2021 he is the third player with the most victories, behind the Polish Iga Swiatek, number 1 in the world, and the Tunisian Ons Jabeur, number 5.