Dubai 2020: Final countdown

ORDER OF PLAY

CENTRE COURT -- 5:00 p.m. start

Doubles final -- [1] HSIEH Su-wei (TPE) / Barbora STRYCOVA (CZE) vs. [5] Barbora KREJCIKOVA (CZE) / ZHENG Saisai (CHN)

Not before 7:00 p.m.
Singles final -- [1] Simona HALEP (ROU) vs. Elena RYBAKINA (KAZ)

MATCH POINTS

No.1 seed Simona Halep and Elena Rybakina will square off for the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships singles title. Rybakina claimed a victory in their only previous meeting, when Halep retired while trailing 5-4 in the round of 16 at last year's Dongfeng Motor Wuhan Open.

World No.2 Halep is making her sixth main-draw appearance at Dubai, and claimed the title in 2015, defeating Karolina Pliskova in the final. Halep has an 11-4 win-loss record at the event.

Read more: Top seed Halep blasts past Brady into Dubai final

Former World No.1 Halep is into her first final of the season, having previously reached the Australian Open semifinals and the quarterfinals in Adelaide.

28-year-old Halep has been ranked inside the Top 10 for 317 consecutive weeks, which is the 10th-longest streak in WTA history. Another win in Dubai would give the Romanian her 20th career WTA singles title.

Rybakina is into her fourth final of the season, in five events played. Thus far this year, the Kazakh won her second career title at the Hobart International, and reached finals at the Shenzhen Open and the St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy.

20-year-old Rybakina has reached her second Premier-level final in the past two weeks, after her runner-up showing in St. Petersburg last week. She leads the WTA in match-wins this season, having pulled together an outstanding 19-3 win-loss record coming into her Dubai clash with Halep.

Read more: Rybakina masters Martic challenge to roll into fourth final of 2020 in Dubai

Rybakina improved her ranking from No.191 to No.37 during her breakthrough 2019 season. She has already risen even further this season, currently enjoying her first-ever week in the Top 20 at No.19.

The doubles final will pit No.1 seeds and defending champions Hsieh Su-wei and Barbora Strycova against No.5 seeds Barbora Krejcikova and Zheng Saisai.

Hsieh and Strycova are 12-1 as a duo in 2020, having reached at least the final in all three of their team events. The top seeds won the title at Brisbane and finished as runners-up at the Australian Open. They have won seven straight matches in Dubai spanning the last two years.

Krejcikova and Zheng are into their first-ever final when teamed together. This is the first event they have played as a tandem since the Internazionali BNL d'Italia in 2017.