Osaka fights back as Ash loses China final

NAOMI Osaka has put Ashleigh Barty’s quest for the year-end No.1 ranking on hold for now after the Japanese star’s three-set win in the China Open final last night.

Osaka fought back to register a 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 win in one hour and 50 minutes in Beijing.

Australia’s French Open champion Barty is still in a strong position to become the first Aussie woman in the professional era to end the year on top of the rankings however because she remains more than 1000 points clear of world No.2 Karolina Pliskova.

Barty began well last night, but Osaka soon found her rhythm and dominated the last two sets to win comfortably.

Earlier, Greece’s Stefanos Tsitsipas beat German second seed Alexander Zverev 7-6 (8-6), 6-4 in the China Open semis to set up a mouthwatering final with Austrian top seed Dominic Thiem.

Tsitsipas, 21, won 70 per cent of his first-service points and broke Zverev four times to leave the German still seeking his first win over a top- 10 opponent in 2019.

The 22-year-old Zverev saved five match points in the second set before a backhand return went long to give the Greek victory in one hour 51 minutes. Tsitsipas had started slowly, though, as Zverev broke him in the first game before taking a 2-0 lead.

However, an argument with the chair umpire over a challenge from Tsitsipas where Zverev’s ace was judged wide seemed to affect his concentration and two double faults allowed the Greek to pull level at 3-3.

Zverev then took out his frustration on his racquet by repeatedly smashing it on the ground while Tsitsipas maintained his composure to win the set in the tiebreak.

It was one-way traffic in the second as Tsitsipas’s momentum allowed him to win 12 points in a row to take a 3-1 lead before a late surge from Zverev only delayed t he inevitable. In the other semifinal, top seed Thiem dropped the first set and came back from 3-5 down in the second to beat Russia’s Karen Khachanov 2-6, 7-6 (7-5), 7-5 in two hours 41 minutes.

The Austrian had been broken only once in the entire tournament before the semifinal but dropped serve six times in the match. Khachanov had the chance to serve for the match at 5-3 in the second set before Thiem fought his way back into the contest.