Kasatkina, Gasparyan set up all-Russian final in St. Petersburg

History was already made in St. Petersburg this week with the first-ever all-Russian semifinal line-up at a WTA event—Daria Kasatkina, Margarita Gasparyan, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Vera Zvonareva.

On Saturday, Kasatkina and Gasparyan beat the two former No. 2s to reach the final of the WTA 500 event, and on Sunday one of them will become the first Russian champion in the tournament’s history.

Gasparyan was the first to reach the championship match, winning an all-wild card battle against Vera Zvonareva, 6-3, 7-6 (9). The match could have easily gone to a third—Zvonareva rallied from 6-3, 5-3 down and ended up holding four set points in the tie-break—but Gasparyan managed to close it out.

This will be Gasparyan’s third and biggest career WTA final, having won a pair of WTA 250s in Baku, Azerbaijan in 2015 and Tashkent, Uzbekistan in 2018, both of which were on outdoor hard courts.

A former No. 41, now-No. 126 Gasparyan will return to the Top 100 on Monday win or lose in the final.

Kasatkina, the No. 8 seed this week, followed Gasparyan into the final with a see-saw victory over No. 4 seed Kuznetsova, losing the first set in a blow-out but then winning eight games in a row and eventually cruising past the 2004 US Open and 2009 French Open champion, 1-6, 6-0, 6-2.

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Since falling to Aryna Sabalenka in the second round of the Australian Open, the No. 61-ranked Kasatkina—a former No. 10—has now won 10 of her last 11 matches. She went 6-0 to win the Phillip Island Trophy (the WTA 250 event held in Melbourne during the second week of the Australian Open) then fell to Alize Cornet in the first round of Dubai, and is 4-0 so far in St. Petersburg this week.

Kasatkina is into her seventh career WTA final, going 3-3 in her first six. This would be the equal-biggest title of her career, having already won two WTA 500s at 2017 Charleston and 2018 Moscow.

She’ll return to the Top 50 on Monday just by reaching the final and will be Top 40 again with the title.

Kasatakina and Gasparyan will be playing each other for the first time.