No. 1 seed Navarro and qualifier Arango advance to Merida final

No. 1 seed Emma Navarro of the United States charged into her second career WTA singles final with a 6-3, 6-3 semifinal victory over Armenia's Elina Avanesyan at the Merida Open Akron on Saturday night.

On the hard courts of Mexico at the WTA 500 event, World No. 10 Navarro collected her second straight-sets win over 45th-ranked Avanesyan in their two meetings. Navarro will now try to go 2-0 in WTA finals, having previously taken the title at 2024 Hobart.

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Her final opponent will be Colombian qualifier Emiliana Arango, who won the late-night semifinal over fellow qualifier Daria Saville 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 in a grueling 2 hours and 52 minutes. Arango is into her first WTA Tour singles final and will make her Top 100 debut on Monday.

Navarro and Arango have met once before, at an ITF Challenger event in Naples, Florida, U.S.A. in January 2023. Navarro won that clay-court semifinal 6-3, 6-1.

Top seed triumphs: This week, Navarro is the No. 1 seed at a WTA tournament for the first time in her career, and she has been nerveless in that position, romping into the final without the loss of a set.

Still, she was pushed early on Saturday by Avanesyan, who held a total of five break points spanning Navarro's first three service games. Avanesyan came into the match knowing she could hang with the tour's best -- she had actually won all three of her previous meetings against Top 10 players.

However, Navarro was able to get out of that early peril without losing serve, and she quickly swung the momentum her way by firing a backhand winner to break for a 4-2 lead. That would be all the American needed to hold on for the one-set advantage.

Six of nine games went against serve in the second set, and Navarro needed four match points in the final game before she closed out the unseeded Armenian after 1 hour and 23 minutes. Navarro finished the match with 19 winners to Avanesyan's eight.

"I played the tennis that I love to play, where there’s a lot of variation, scrapping points out and running a bit, definitely being aggressive when there’s opportunities to," Navarro said afterwards. "That’s what I love about playing."

Arango wins all-qualifier showdown: Later on Saturday, Arango prevailed over Australia's Saville in an epic encounter that finished just before 11:00 p.m. local time -- a breakthrough result the 24-year-old called "very surreal" afterwards.

"I think we both tried to keep adjusting our games, to see which way we could get a bit of an edge," Arango said. "I think it was a very entertaining match, I had a lot of fun playing it. 

"It has been quite a journey. I’ve had a few long matches, there’s been a lot of things that have happened -- it feels like it’s been longer than a week, to be honest. But it’s been a really fun week."

The Colombian was playing in her first career WTA semifinal this week, and she was facing a player in Saville who has been ranked inside the Top 20 and won a WTA 500 title at 2017 New Haven.

However, Arango has been on a hot streak in Mexico and she continued that run with her best tour-level result. Arango has won 11 straight matches -- she won her first WTA 125 title at Cancun last month, and has now picked up six wins here in Merida (two in qualifying).

After splitting the first two sets, Arango took charge in the third set and was a point away from a 5-1 lead, but Saville eventually had two chances of her own to get back on serve. However, an eye-catching Arango tweener drew a volley error from Saville and the Colombian moved ahead 5-2.

From there, World No. 133 Arango broke Saville for a sixth time to wrap up the win and set up a Sunday showdown against Navarro. This will be Arango's second meeting versus a Top 10 opponent -- she fell to then-No. 9 Maria Sakkari in the 2023 Guadalajara quarterfinals.

This is the second time this year that a qualifier has made a WTA 500 final. Qualifier Polina Kudermetova pushed World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka to three sets in January's Brisbane final.