Late entry Kiki Bertens stunned world No 1 Ashleigh Barty with a comeback three-set victory to shake-up the season-ending WTA Finals in Shenzhen on Tuesday.
Bertens looked in deep trouble at a set and break down, but turned the tide with ruthless returning and aggressive play at the net to overwhelm a deflated Barty, who could have sealed a spot in the semi-finals with victory.
The world No 10 won 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 in two hours and nine minutes in a see-saw match featuring 12 breaks of serve.
"Of course you're always ready to play, but I did not see it coming today," Bertens said of her late call-up. "In the beginning I was struggling. As the match continued, I felt better and better."
Bertens was a late replacement for world No 3 Naomi Osaka, who earlier in the day withdrew from the round-robin tournament due to a shoulder injury.
She appeared nervous under the bright lights dropping her first three service games and Barty, who has locked up the year-end No.1 ranking, pounced to run away with the first set.
Barty then endured her own service woes against an increasingly aggressive Bertens, who showcased a soft touch at the net.
A slumping Barty had her serve broken five times through the second and third sets as Bertens stormed to her first victory over the Australian.
Barty lamented letting slip her early lead. "I wasn't able to execute as cleanly when I was up in the score line," she said.
Bertens, who made the semi-finals of last year's edition, continued her strong form after making the finals in Zhuhai last week and the semi-finals of the China Open earlier in the month, when she lost a three-set thriller to Barty.
In the later match, Bencic fought back from a second set spiral to beat Petra Kvitova 6-3, 1-6, 6-4 in one hour and 47 minutes. It kept her tournament hopes alive after she had lost her opening match to Barty.
"I was proud that I was able to block away her big shots," Bencic said. "I was happy that at the end I was able to keep calm."
Kvitova's serve went off the boil as she fell away badly in the first set to lose five straight games. A double fault was a fitting way for the Czech to hand Bencic the first set.
But the match flipped in the second set with Kvitova, the 2011 WTA Finals champion, rediscovering her lethal serve to force a decider.
The twists continued in the third set with Bencic breaking in the third game as a flustered Kvitova slammed her racquet on the ground. The Swiss failed to capitalise in the next game but grabbed the decisive break in the ninth before confidently closing it out on serve.
Winless Kvitova plays Barty on Thursday and Bencic meets Bertens to determine the winners from Red Group.
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
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WRESTLING HIGHLIGHTS
More on Quran memorisation:
Global state-owned investor ranking by size
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United States
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China
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UAE
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Japan
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Norway
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Canada
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Singapore
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Australia
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Saudi Arabia
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South Korea
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Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
Lexus LX700h specs
Engine: 3.4-litre twin-turbo V6 plus supplementary electric motor
Power: 464hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 790Nm from 2,000-3,600rpm
Transmission: 10-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 11.7L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh590,000
Gothia Cup 2025
4,872 matches
1,942 teams
116 pitches
76 nations
26 UAE teams
15 Lebanese teams
2 Kuwaiti teams
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'Young girls thinking of big ideas'
Words come easy for aspiring writer Afra Al Muhairb. The business side of books, on the other hand, is entirely foreign to the 16-year-old Emirati. So, she followed her father’s advice and enroled in the Abu Dhabi Education Council’s summer entrepreneurship course at Abu Dhabi University hoping to pick up a few new skills.
“Most of us have this dream of opening a business,” said Afra, referring to her peers are “young girls thinking of big ideas.”
In the three-week class, pupils are challenged to come up with a business and develop an operational and marketing plan to support their idea. But, the learning goes far beyond sales and branding, said teacher Sonia Elhaj.
“It’s not only about starting up a business, it’s all the meta skills that goes with it -- building self confidence, communication,” said Ms Elhaj. “It’s a way to coach them and to harness ideas and to allow them to be creative. They are really hungry to do this and be heard. They are so happy to be actually doing something, to be engaged in creating something new, not only sitting and listening and getting new information and new knowledge. Now they are applying that knowledge.”
Afra’s team decided to focus their business idea on a restaurant modelled after the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Each level would have a different international cuisine and all the meat would be halal. The pupils thought of this after discussing a common problem they face when travelling abroad.
“Sometimes we find the struggle of finding halal food, so we just eat fish and cheese, so it’s hard for us to spend 20 days with fish and cheese,” said Afra. “So we made this tower so every person who comes – from Africa, from America – they will find the right food to eat.”
rpennington@thenational.ae
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
Ferrari 12Cilindri specs
Engine: naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12
Power: 819hp
Torque: 678Nm at 7,250rpm
Price: From Dh1,700,000
Available: Now
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Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
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Director: Paul Weitz
Stars: Kevin Hart
3/5 stars
WHAT IS A BLACK HOLE?
1. Black holes are objects whose gravity is so strong not even light can escape their pull
2. They can be created when massive stars collapse under their own weight
3. Large black holes can also be formed when smaller ones collide and merge
4. The biggest black holes lurk at the centre of many galaxies, including our own
5. Astronomers believe that when the universe was very young, black holes affected how galaxies formed
Indoor Cricket World Cup
Venue Insportz, Dubai, September 16-23
UAE squad Saqib Nazir (captain), Aaqib Malik, Fahad Al Hashmi, Isuru Umesh, Nadir Hussain, Sachin Talwar, Nashwan Nasir, Prashath Kumara, Ramveer Rai, Sameer Nayyak, Umar Shah, Vikrant Shetty
New schools in Dubai
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Contracted list
Ashton Agar, Alex Carey, Pat Cummins, Aaron Finch, Peter Handscomb, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Glenn Maxwell, Shaun Marsh, Mitchell Marsh, Tim Paine, Matt Renshaw, Jhye Richardson, Kane Richardson, Billy Stanlake, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis, Andrew Tye.
