WTA Finals 2018: Saturday's Order of Play and Match Points

Play starts at 1.30pm

Barbora KREJCIKOVA (CZE) / Katerina SINIAKOVA (CZE) [1] v Andrea SESTINI HLAVACKOVA (CZE) / Barbora STRYCOVA (CZE) [3]

Not before 4pm
Kiki BERTENS (NED) [8] v Elina SVITOLINA (UKR) [6]

Not before 7.30pm
Sloane STEPHENS (USA) [5] v Karolina PLISKOVA (CZE) [7]

Ashleigh BARTY (AUS) / CoCo VANDEWEGHE (USA) v Timea BABOS (HUN) / Kristina MLADENOVIC (FRA) [2]

MATCH POINTS

Kiki Bertens and Elina Svitolina have met only twice previously. While the Ukrainian took the first meeting between the pair in three sets in 2016, the Dutch hit back in Cincinnati earlier this year, when she won, 6-4, 6-3.

Bertens' victory over Naomi Osaka on Friday, which was achieved by retirement, will go down as her 12th against a Top 10 player in 2018 - a Tour-leading figure. Before this year, she only had three in her career.

Sloane Stephens holds a 2-1 head-to-head lead over Karolina Pliskova. However, the Czech won their only 2018 meeting in Madrid. On hard courts, the pair have met only once previously. Stephens won that match, 6-3, 6-2, in Beijing in 2015.

Pliskova is the WTA Tour match win leader this season, with 49 match victories. She is bidding to hit the 50-win mark for the third time in her career, after posting 53 wins in 2015 and 2017.

Svitolina and Stephens both progressed through their groups with three victories. They were the 20th and 21st players to achieve that feat respectively. 

The last player to progress through the group stage with a perfect record and win the tournament was Serena Williams in 2013. Since then, Caroline Wozniacki, Maria Sharapova, Garbiñe Muguruza and Angelique Kerber have done so, with only the German reaching the final.

This is the first time since the round-robin came into play in 2003 that the lowest four seeds have all made it through to the semifinals at the WTA Finals. Stephens, the No.5 seed, is the highest-ranked player left in the draw.

The last time there were no Top 4 seeds into the semifinals at the WTA Finals was 1994, which had a 16-player, single-elimination draw. That year in the final four, No.7 seed Lindsay Davenport defeated No.5 seed Mary Pierce and unseeded Gabriela Sabatini defeated No.8 seed Kimiko Date.

Two debutantes, Kiki Bertens and Sloane Stephens, have reached the semifinals in the same year for the first time since 2007 (Ana Ivanovic and Anna Chakvetadze).

The semifinal between No.2 seeds Timea Babos and Kristina Mladenovic and unseeded Ashleigh Barty and CoCo Vandeweghe will be a rematch of the 2018 US Open final, which Barty/Vandeweghe won in a deciding-set tiebreak.

2018 Australian Open champions Babos/Mladenovic and 2018 US Open winners Barty/Vandeweghe have split their four meetings this year, although Barty/Vandeweghe have won both of their two meetings on hardcourt. Babos/Mladenovic picked up one win on clay and one win on grass.

No.1 seeds Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova have a 1-0 head-to-head lead over No.3 seeds Andrea Sestini Hlavackova and Barbora Strycova. The top seeds beat their compatriots in the Roland Garros semifinals in straight sets, en route to their first of two 2018 Grand Slam titles.