Osorio Serrano keeps dream alive in Bogota, will face Zidansek for title

Former junior World No.1 Maria Camila Osorio Serrano's Cinderella run on home soil in Bogota will continue on to championship Sunday.

The 19-year-old wildcard's breakthrough run continued on Saturday with an emphatic 6-1, 6-2 semifinal victory over French qualifier Harmony Tan, putting her through to her first WTA singles final in just her fourth career WTA main draw appearance.

The Colombian's effort this week has seen her earn her first win against a Top 100 player, beating No.7 seed Tereza Martincova in the second round, before following that up with a victory over former Top 50 player Stefanie Voegele in the last eight. She has not dropped a set in four victories this week. 

"I feel super happy to be in the final," Osorio Serrano said after the match. "I was really hoping to be here and to play in the final. I really don't feel any pressure and I feel like it's an opportunity for me to enjoy, to play my best and to do what I've been doing the whole week. 

"It's my chance to show my tennis, show my best and I hope that I can play well in this final."

After winning a nearly 15-minute game to begin the match, Osorio Serrano overwhelmed the French qualifier in the first five games to build a 5-0 lead. Contesting her sixth match of the week, Tan received a medical timeout at the ensuing changeover and saved the bagel, but never found a foothold in the match over the course of 85 minutes.

Though each player landed less than half of her first serves in the match, it was Osorio Serrano who proved all the more effective on return: in all, the wildcard broke serve seven times.

Currently ranked World No.180, the Colombian is the lowest-ranked singles finalist on the WTA this year, and is the third player from her country to play for the title in Bogota. Fabiola Zuluaga won the event four times, in 1999 and 2002-04, and Mariana Duque-Mariño won her crown in 2010. 

The former US Open junior champion will play No.5 seed Tamara Zidansek for the title. In Saturday's first semifinal, the Slovenian came from a break down in the second set to beat Bulgarian Viktoriya Tomova, 6-3, 7-5. 

"I haven't had such good results in the past year. Obviously, no one was playing for a major of the last year and it was hard to get back into a rhythm for me, so I needed a few consecutive matches and tournaments to get back into the rhythm, so I'm really happy with that. All the work is starting to come together," Zidansek said after the match.

"The conditions are pretty tough because of the altitude and if you're not completely focused, one ball, two balls, one point, two points go by and it's 1-4. I just kept telling myself to keep fighting, keep staying in the match, be there for every point and I manage to turn it around."

At the event's last staging in 2019, Osorio Serrano reached the quarterfinals as a wildcard before bowing out to eventual Amanda Anisimova in three sets. She and Zidansek, the lone seeded player among those to reach the quarterfinals this week, have never played. 

"It would mean a lot to win my first WTA title because that's what we're working for," Zidansek said. "I've won two WTA 125Ks, but I remember that feeling, how it felt. Going for my first WTA 250 title, winning that would be amazing."

In the doubles final, the unseeded French-American pairing of Elixane Lechemia and Ingrid Neel won their first WTA crown together, beating No.3 seeds Mihaela Buzarnescu and Anna-Lena Friedsam in straight sets, 6-3, 6-4. 

Ranked World No.137 and World No.148 in the WTA doubles rankings, respectively, coming into the week, the pair needed match tiebreaks to earn victory in both the quarterfinals and semifinals before knocking off the seeded tandem to lift the trophy.