Former No.4 Sofia Kenin defeated Leylah Fernandez 6-4, 6-7(6), 6-1 to advance to the Guadalajara Open AKRON semifinals.

Guadalajara 2023: Scores | Order of Play | Draws

Coming off her run to the San Diego final last week, the resurgent American has now made back-to-back semifinals for the first time since doing so at Toronto and Cincinnati in 2019. 

Kenin was ranked as low as No.101 in late August. With her results over the last two weeks, she is now in the brink of a return to the Top 30. Since the start of Wimbledon qualifying in July, Kenin has now won 14 of her last 17 matches.

Kenin overcame 15 aces from the Canadian's racquet and 14 double faults off her own, to get the win after 2 hours and 47 minutes. After taking the closely contested first set, Kenin trailed Fernandez 5-2 in the second. 

Kenin did well to mount a comeback, saving two set points to push the set into a tiebreak. She saved two more set points there before finally succumbing, hitting a double fault to hand over the 81-minute set.

"Leylah played great," Kenin said on court. "She started off really well in the second, and I almost came back, almost won it. I was kind of frustrated that I lost it, but she's a fighter, so I knew I needed to cool off and fight in the third."

Kenin rebounded immediately. She rediscovered her baseline range and took control of the match in the deciding set. After saving a break point in her opening service game, the American broke Fernandez and then never saw a break point on her own serve again. 

The victory improved Kenin's head-to-head record against Fernandez to 2-0. 

Kenin will next face another unseeded American, Caroline Dolehide, in the semifinals. World No.111 Dolehide saved four match points to beat Martina Trevisan on Thursday evening and reach the first Hologic WTA Tour semifinal of her career.

Dolehide has won two of her three professional meetings with Kenin, which all took place at ITF Challenger events in the United States. They have not faced off since 2017.