Aiming for the Sunshine Double, Sabalenka sweeps past Rybakina in Miami!

The lineup for the 2026 WTA1000 Miami Open women's singles final has been determined. In the first women's singles semifinal concluded in the lower half, American player Coco Gauff swept past the 13th seed Karolina Muchova with two 6-1 victories. While maintaining a perfect six-match winning record against her opponent, Gauff reached the women's singles final of this tournament for the first time in her career, marking her sixth career appearance in a 1000-level final.

Although the scoreline in the semifinal between Gauff and Muchova was lopsided, the match still lasted 1 hour and 29 minutes. Throughout the match, the American player outperformed her opponent in all technical aspects. Notably, in her previous four matches against Cocciaretto, Parks, Kostyuk, and Bencic, she endured three-set battles. This straight-sets victory in the semifinal highlights Gauff's stylistic dominance over Muchova.

In the upper half's marquee clash between Aryna Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina, the top seed Sabalenka also secured a straight-sets victory, defeating Rybakina 6-4, 6-3. She has now reached the women's singles finals of both the Indian Wells and Miami 1000-level tournaments consecutively for two years. This marks Sabalenka's 15th career final at a 1000-level event. Currently, Sabalenka is just one match away from defending her Miami title and achieving the Sunshine Double.

So far in the entire 2026 season, Sabalenka and Rybakina have undoubtedly been the two most outstanding performers. Among them, Sabalenka leads with a dominant record of 22 wins and 1 loss. However, the Belarusian star's biggest regret this year is losing the Australian Open women's singles final.

This semifinal showdown with Rybakina was Sabalenka's third encounter with the Kazakh star this season, with their previous meetings resulting in one win and one loss. Ultimately, Sabalenka's excellent performance on crucial points, with a first-serve win rate of 92% and 5 aces, shifted their overall head-to-head record to 10 wins and 7 losses.

A second Miami final, a fifteenth 1000-level final, a forty-fourth tour-level final—Sabalenka is demonstrating her dominance with each victory. It is noteworthy that reaching the finals in all four tournaments of a season's opening events has only been achieved by three players in this century: Martina Hingis in 2001, Serena Williams in 2003, and Victoria Azarenka in 2012. We look forward to the Belarusian star delivering an outstanding performance in the final.

In contrast, the two men's singles semifinals in Miami offer slightly less intrigue, especially in the upper half where the semifinalists are the 21st seed Lehečka and the 28th seed Fils. The lower half features the 2nd seed Jannik Sinner and the 3rd seed Alexander Zverev, while the top seed Carlos Alcaraz was eliminated early in the third round by American player Sebastian Korda.（Source: Tennis Home Author: Barbie）