Leonie Küng continues to win - and is in the final of Hua Hin
Swiss Leonie Küng has so far been unstoppable in Hua Hin, Thailand. Now she is even in the final - and will make up almost 150 places in the world rankings next week. Leonie Küng continues to win - and will be in the final of Hua Hin
by Florian Goosmann
last edit: Feb 15, 2020, 05:25 pm
Leonie Küng won her semi-final match against Nao Hibino in a competitive game with long rallies with 7: 5, 4: 6 and 6: 3 and is thus in her first final on the WTA tour.
In general, Küng had won her first peloton game on the WTA tour in Hua Hin this week. The 19-year-old from Schaffhausen, currently number 283 in the world, first had to fight for the qualification in the main field and has won six matches so far. In the quarterfinals against the world ranking 27. Qiang Wang 7-5, 4-6 and 6-4. Wang had won Serena Williams at the Australian Open in January.
Against Hibino, Küng was quickly 1: 5 behind after winning the first set in the second round, but then struggled again. In the third set she made the decisive break to 5: 2, she then had to fend off two break balls from the Japanese.
"I'm super tired - but super happy!" Said the 19-year-old afterwards.
Thanks to her move-in to the final, Küng will make up almost 150 places in the upcoming WTA ranking; in the current live ranking it will be ranked 155th.
Leonie Küng: Career was in danger
Küng had reached the final at the Wimbledon junior tournament in 2018, but in 2019 the continuation of her career was questionable. In the spring she was diagnosed with Pfeiffer's glandular fever, and there was also a Lyme disease. "I had to listen very hard to my body. When I got tired of playing tennis, I stopped immediately. I slept a lot and tried to recover as much as possible. I am very grateful that I never had to stop playing tennis and it I was getting better and better, " she told the Swiss view at the end of 2019 .
Above all, her fitness was crucial on the way back, which she had almost completely lost after the illness. "It hurt me a lot because I was always very strong there. I had to start from scratch more or less and was really tormented to be fit again in such a short time," said Küng.
In the finals of the $ 275,000 international tournament in Hua Hin, Küng will meet Magda Linette on Sunday, who beat Patricia Maria Tig.
Barbara Haas in the double final
Barbara Haas also made it into the final of the double competition: the Austrian won with Ellen Perez over Shuai Peng and Yafan Wang. The opponents in the final are the four seeded Ariana Rodionova and Storm Sanders.
St. Petersburg: Rybakina and Bertens in the final
Elena Rybakina and Kiki Bertens made it to the final at the WTA Premier event in St. Petersburg. Rybakina beat Maria Sakkari with 3.6, 7: 5 and 6: 1, while the two seeded Bertens won 6: 1, 4: 6 and 6: 1 against Ekaterina Alexandrova.