No.1 seed Shnaider and unseeded Sasnovich advance to Budapest final

No.1 seed Diana Shnaider and unseeded Aliaksandra Sasnovich will face off for the Hungarian Grand Prix title after they each claimed semifinal victories on Saturday.

Budapest 2024: Scores | Draws | Order of Play

Shnaider moved a win away from her third title of the year -- on three different surfaces -- by ousting Eva Lys 6-3, 6-3. Shnaider, currently ranked a career-high World No.28, needed 1 hour and 25 minutes to beat 129th-ranked Lys.

World No.134 Sasnovich had a tougher semifinal, collecting a 6-3, 3-6, 7-5 win over 79th-ranked Anna Karolina Schmiedlova. Former Top 30 player Sasnovich fought back from 5-2 down in the third set, grabbing the win after 2 hours and 46 minutes of play.

Shnaider and Sasnovich have met once before, where Shnaider romped to a 6-1, 6-2 victory in Doha qualies earlier this year. This will be their first meeting on clay.

Shnaider continues surge: Rapidly rising Shnaider started this year ranked No.60, but she finds herself on the brink of the Top 25 after winning her first two WTA singles titles in 2024. She took the trophies on the hard courts of Hua Hin and the grass of Bad Homburg this year.

If 20-year-old Shnaider can capture the Budapest clay-court title on Sunday, she would become the youngest player to win WTA singles titles on all three surfaces in a single year since 19-year-old Caroline Wozniacki pulled off the feat in 2009.

In Saturday's first set, a fierce forehand winner gave Shnaider the first break for 3-2, and she eased to the one-set lead from there. Aside from a lengthy game at 3-1 in the second set, Shnaider had little trouble closing out the victory to reach her fourth final of the year.

Shnaider saved all three of the break points she faced in the semifinal, as she became the third player this year to reach finals on all three surfaces, joining Jasmine Paolini and Daria Kasatkina.

"Every match is difficult on the level that we are playing here," Shnaider said after her win. "Very happy that I managed to win all four matches [this week], because they all were very tough and against not the easiest opponents. Proud of myself and enjoyed every moment here."

Sasnovich seeking first title: In the day's first semifinal, Sasnovich maintained a dominant head-to-head lead over Schmiedlova by virtue of her narrow victory. Sasnovich has triumphed in seven of her eight career meetings with Schmiedlova.

"I was so upset when the score was 5-2 [down in the third set]," Sasnovich said following her comeback win. "I started to risk more, I started to play more relaxed, I think, like you saw. I tried to enjoy the game."

For the fifth time in her career, Sasnovich is a win away from her first WTA singles title. She is 0-4 in finals thus far, finishing runner-up at 2015 Seoul, 2018 Brisbane, 2022 Melbourne Summer Set 2, and 2022 Cleveland.

Despite winning the first set relatively handily on Saturday, Sasnovich faced break points in 10 of her first 11 service games. Sasnovich was plagued by double faults in the early stages of the third set (she had a total of 17 double faults in the match), as she fell behind 5-2. 

However, Sasnovich fired a forehand winner down the line to pull back on serve at 5-4, and she steered the match in her favor from there. Serving for the match at 6-5, Sasnovich hit winners to erase two break points, and she came out on top in a rally on her first match point to clinch the win.