This article first appeared on SportsLook, JAPAN Forward’s dedicated sports website.
Liudmila Samsonova has played tennis at a consistently high level over the past several weeks, resulting in an impressive late-season run of success.
The 23-year-old Russian has won 18 of her last 19 matches, including the Toray Pan Pacific Open final on Sunday, September 25 at Ariake Colosseum. Samsonova defeated Qinwen Zheng 7-5, 7-5 to claim her third WTA Tour title of the season.
In August, Samsonova won the Citi Open in Washington, D.C. and the Tennis in the Land tournament in Cleveland before reaching the fourth round of the US Open.
At the Cleveland tournament, which wrapped up on August 27, the 30th-ranked Samsonova won all five of her matches without dropping a set.
At the Toray Pan Pacific Open she did the same thing, with successive victories over 2022 Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina, 6-2, 6-4; Shuai Zhang, 7-6 (7-5), 6-3; Garbine Muguruza, 6-4, 6-2; Xinyu Wang, 7-6 (7-4), 6-2; and Zheng.
Read the full story on SportsLook.
Author: Ed Odeven
Follow Ed on JAPAN Forward's [Japan Sports Notebook] here on Sundays, in [Odds and Evens] here during the week, and Twitter ＠ed_odeven, and find him on JAPAN Forward’s dedicated sports website, SportsLook.
