Karolina Muchova's comeback from injury continues to rapidly gather momentum as she moved into the final of the WTA 1000 China Open in Beijing.

World No.49 Muchova of the Czech Republic defeated No.5 seed Zheng Qinwen 6-3, 6-4 in their semifinal match on Saturday night. Muchova needed 1 hour and 47 minutes of play to topple Chinese hope Zheng, the reigning Olympic gold medalist.

Beijing: Scores | Order of Play | Draws

It is 28-year-old Muchova's second straight Top 10 win this week. She snapped No.1 seed Aryna Sabalenka's 15-match winning streak in Friday's quarterfinals.

"I'm just happy I was able to perform well against these big players and put up my game and that I could see that, yeah, I can face them, I can beat them," former World No.8 Muchova said, after her latest win.

Muchova improves to a 2-1 lead in her head-to-head with Zheng, avenging a loss in this summer's Palermo final. Muchova is now into her second career WTA 1000 final, following her runner-up showing at Cincinnati last year.

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Gauff awaits again: In fact, there will be a rematch of that 2023 Cincinnati final on Sunday, when Muchova takes on No.4 seed Coco Gauff for this year's Beijing title. Gauff overcame No.15 seed Paula Badosa 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 in Saturday's first semifinal.

Gauff notched a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Muchova to claim the Cincinnati title last summer. Weeks later, Gauff improved to 2-0 over Muchova when she bested the Czech in the 2023 US Open semifinals, 6-4, 7-5, en route to the American's first Grand Slam title.

"We played a year ago, so we are different players today and tomorrow," Muchova said. "I'll just try to play my best and challenge her and hope for the best result tomorrow."

Muchova momentum: Directly after that 2023 US Open semifinal run, Muchova missed 10 months of action due to injury, and she eventually had wrist surgery in February 2024. But the Czech's top form has been mostly intact since returning to tour this June.

Muchova has played seven events in this injury comeback, and she has already posted strong results within that limited action. Along with her runner-up result to Zheng at Palermo, she repeated her semifinal run at this year's US Open, and is now back in a WTA 1000 final.

"I said it in the past, I didn't know how this year is going to look like, if I will play, if I will not play, what my level is going to be," Muchova said. "Making a final here, it's just so nice. Such a nice feeling."

Match moments: In Saturday's semifinal, Muchova earned the first break point of the day when she fired a backhand winner at 3-2 in the opener. On break point, Zheng stumbled and fell on the court, losing her service to fall behind 4-2, and needing an immediate medical time-out.

After treatment, the Chinese player stayed sturdy and had a break point at 5-3 to get back on serve, but Muchova swatted that away with a stellar serve that went unreturned. An ace lined up set point for Muchova, which she converted after she forced a Zheng error long.

Margins were extremely fine in the first set, where each player had seven winners and one break point. But Muchova converted her break point while Zheng did not, and the Czech had just five unforced errors to Zheng's 11.

A double fault by Zheng handed Muchova a love break at 2-1 in the second set. Zheng evaded two match points at 5-3 with nearly identical booming serve-and-forehand combos, but an unruffled Muchova served the victory out at love in the following game. Muchova never lost serve in the match.

"Tough battle out there today," Muchova said. "I was happy I was able to hold my serve during the whole match. That helped a lot. Glad that I was able to close it in two sets today."