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The WTA Finals, featuring the world's top eight singles players
and doubles teams, will start in Fort Worth, Texas on Oct. 31.
Kasatkina, who was beaten 6-3 2-6 6-3 by Anna Kalinskaya on
Thursday, will make her debut in the season finale after winning
in San Jose and Granby, while fourth-ranked Sabalenka will make
her second appearance.
Greek fourth seed Sakkari kept alive her hopes of making the
Finals by surviving an early scare and fighting back from a set
down to beat American Danielle Collins 5-7 6-3 6-3.
With the deciding set level at 3-3, Sakkari, who had squandered
a set point in the first set, dug deep to win three straight
games against Collins and progress to the quarter-finals of the
WTA 1000 event.
Sakkari will face Kudermetova, who beat Latvian Jelena Ostapenko
6-4 6-4, and the winner of that match will snap up the last
qualification spot on offer at the Finals.
"It was meant to be. It was meant for me and Veronika to be in
that spot, fighting each other to get that last spot," Sakkari
told reporters. "I believe we're both going to be very motivated
to get it."
Earlier on Thursday, two-time former Australian Open champion
Victoria Azarenka battled past Madison Keys 6-4 6-7(4) 6-1,
ending the American's hopes of qualifying for the Finals and
setting up a quarter-final showdown with Coco Gauff, who rolled
past Italian Martina Trevisan 6-0 6-3.
It will be the first meeting between the 33-year-old Azarenka
and the American 15 years her junior, after overcoming
second-set blunders to dispatch Keys in a tense two hours and 14
minutes.
Gauff booked her ticket for Fort Worth a day earlier.
Third-ranked American Jessica Pegula kept her impressive 2022 on
track to down former U.S. Open winner Bianca Andreescu 6-4 6-4
and will next face compatriot Sloane Stephens, who dispatched
France's Caroline Garcia 7-6(6) 7-5.
Pegula, a quarter-finalist at the Australian Open, Roland Garros
and U.S. Open this year, looked in trouble as the Canadian broke
her to love in the second game of the first set but quickly
found her form, winning slightly more than 70% of her
first-serve points across the entire match.
(Reporting by Amy Tennery in New York, additional reporting by
Aadi Nair; Editing by Christopher Cushing & Shri Navaratnam)
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