Leylah Fernandez had Elena Rybakina at 15-40 in the first service game of the Ningbo Open final and missed on both break points. The world No. 1 did not face another until the second set, and she won 6-2, 6-2 in 1 hour, 16 minutes on Sunday to defend her title.
From 1-2 down in the opening set, Rybakina took five games in a row and converted both of her break points. In the second set she broke in the third game, when Fernandez missed a backhand on the second break point, and then had to hold straight away under pressure: Fernandez had two more chances in the next game, and Rybakina erased both with winners.
Fernandez held once more for 2-3, and Rybakina won the last three games, with one more break, to close it out. She converted four of her five break points and did not lose her serve. “I feel like I was getting better with each match this week and today it was a really solid performance from my side,” Rybakina said.
The defense. It was the first time Rybakina has successfully defended a title, and her first trophy since becoming world No. 1. She won Ningbo on her only previous visit, last year, coming from a set down to beat Ekaterina Alexandrova 3-6, 6-0, 6-2, and she has now won eight straight matches there.
“Very happy and definitely for me, Ningbo is already a special place,” she said. She did not arrive in good shape. Earlier this month she lost her opening match in Beijing to the 118th-ranked Alina Charaeva, then withdrew from Wuhan with a foot injury. In Ningbo, after a first-round bye, she led Polina Kudermetova 5-0 when Kudermetova retired, needed three sets to beat Iva Jovic 6-1, 3-6, 6-1 in the quarterfinals and beat Diana Shnaider 6-3, 7-5 in the semifinals.
The season. Ningbo is Rybakina’s fourth title of 2026, after the Australian Open, Stuttgart and the US Open, and no player has won more this year. It is her 15th career title and her seventh at WTA 500 level. Her 53 match wins this season lead the tour, three ahead of Mirra Andreeva and Jessica Pegula. She leads Fernandez 4-2 in their meetings and has won the last three.
The runner-up. Fernandez reached the final the hard way, with three-set wins over Elise Mertens, Aliaksandra Sasnovich and Ekaterina Alexandrova before a 6-3, 7-5 win over Marie Bouzkova in the semifinals. It was her second final of the Asian swing, after her title in Singapore in September. She chose Ningbo over defending her title in Osaka the same week, and a runner-up finish at a WTA 500 is worth more ranking points than a 250 title.
What it means. Both players move on to the Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo this week, where they could meet in the quarterfinals. Then Rybakina goes to Indian Wells for the WTA Finals, from 8 to 15 November, as the defending champion.
