GUADALAJARA, Mexico – Aryna Sabalenka and Daria Kasatkina secured qualification for the WTA Finals on Thursday, while a face-off between Maria Sakkari and Veronika Kudermetova at the Guadalajara Open will decide the final spot at the season-ending event on the women’s tour.

The WTA Finals, featuring the world’s top eight singles players and doubles pairs, 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 the fourth-ranked Sabalenka will make her second appearance.

Greek fourth seed Sakkari kept alive her hopes of making the Finals by fighting back from a set down to beat American Danielle Collins 5-7, 6-3, 6-3.

She will next 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.

The other players who have qualified are Iga Swiatek, Ons Jabeur, Jessica Pegula, Coco Gauff and Caroline Garcia.

“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 (4-7), 6-1.

That ended the Keys’ hopes of qualifying for the Finals and setting up a quarter-final showdown with 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 2hr 14min.

Gauff booked her ticket for Fort Worth a day earlier.

The third-ranked American Jessica Pegula kept her impressive 2022 season on track to by downing former US Open winner champion Bianca Andreescu 6-4, 6-4 and will next face compatriot Sloane Stephens, who dispatched France’s Garcia 7-6 (8-6), 7-5.

Pegula, a quarter-finalist at the Australian Open, Roland Garros and US Open in 2022, 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 per cent of her first-serve points across the entire match.  REUTERS