Victoria Mboko and Karolína Muchová emerged victorious in the semi-finals of the women’s draw at the 2026 Qatar Open.
The penultimate day of the women’s tournament at the 2026 Qatar Open was full of exciting semi-final action.
Jeļena Ostapenko and Victoria Mboko’s highly anticipated showdown headlined the day’s order of play, drawing the spotlight as the tournament reached its decisive stage.
The 28-year-old Ostapenko was by far the more experienced player on court, but all eyes were on the Canadian teenager, who had defeated fifth seed Mirra Andreeva and newly crowned Australian Open champion Elena Rybakina in successive three-set thrillers to reach the final four.
The Latvian star came flying out of the blocks as she won the first two games, but Mboko broke right back thereafter. She went on to get the all-important second break late in the first set, and quickly converted it into a decisive lead on the scoreboard.
Ostapenko was not playing badly at all, but Mboko’s ability to impose herself on points both on serve and while returning made life quite difficult for the Latvian. The teenager raced away in the second set as she won the first five games to set herself up to serve for the match. Although she was denied on the first occasion, she got the job done on the second time of asking.
With that, Mboko advanced to the second final of her fledgling career and broke into the top 10 of the women’s world rankings.
The second singles semi-final between Maria Sakkari and Karolína Muchová was a much closer contest from the off. The two traded blows and went toe-toe in an intense affair, taking a set each to set up a third set showdown. The Greek player, who had overcome No. 1 seed in a gruelling quarter-final, seemed to run out of gas then as she lost the first five games of the decider and ultimately fell short to Muchová.
Ostapenko returned to court later in the day for her second semifinal, this time in the doubles draw, partnering Hsieh Su-wei against defending champions Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini. The contest went the distance, with both teams claiming a set apiece before the Italian pair were edged out in the deciding tiebreak.
Earlier, fourth seeds Anna Danilina and Aleksandra Krunić booked their place in the final with a straight-sets victory over Gabriela Dabrowski and Luisa Stefani.
The WTA Qatar Open will conclude on Saturday with both finals set to take the spotlight at centre court in the Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex.
