Tagger thrashes Quevedo in 52 minutes to reach Guangzhou final

Lilli Tagger is one match away from her second WTA title. The 18-year-old Austrian, seeded fourth in Guangzhou, beat Spain's Kaitlin Quevedo 6-2, 6-0 in just 52 minutes in Saturday's semi-finals. On Sunday she meets British qualifier Harriet Dart for the title.

The contrast between the two semi-finals could hardly have been sharper. Tagger was in and out in under an hour. Dart needed two and a half hours and had to save match points before getting past 16-year-old Chinese wildcard Sun Xinran.

A near-perfect serving display

Tagger never faced a break point against Quevedo. She held all seven of her service games and won all 19 points she played behind her first serve, according to Tennis Majors. Austrian broadcaster ORF reports that she broke at 1-1 in the first set, at the fourth attempt, and closed out the set after 32 minutes. From there Quevedo's resistance faded: Tagger broke three more times in the second set without dropping a game.

It was a far cleaner afternoon than her quarter-final, which she won in three sets. This is the third WTA final of Tagger's young career, after Jiujiang in 2025 and Prague in 2026, where she won her first title. It is also her second final in China. Currently ranked No. 53, she would climb around ten places by winning the title, ORF reports.

Dart's long road

Her opponent took the long way round. Dart, 30, came through qualifying and beat Paula Badosa in the quarter-finals. In the semi-finals she lost the first set to Sun, a 16-year-old wildcard who won the US Open junior title this year, and was trailing 4-5 in the second. She saved several match points there, won the tie-break 7-1 and then ran away with the decider. The final score was 5-7, 7-6, 6-0. Tennis Majors reports that it is the first WTA final of her career, which makes Sunday a landmark occasion for the Briton whatever the result.

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"It's been a really long journey. I've wanted it so much, so badly – sometimes too much. To finally be here means the world," Dart said afterwards.

First tour-level meeting

Sunday's match will be the first meeting between Tagger and Dart on the WTA Tour. They have played once before, in January at an ITF W100 event in the United Arab Emirates, where Tagger won in straight sets, according to ORF.

On form, Tagger goes in as the favourite after her dominant semi-final. But Dart has already beaten a former top-ten player and a rising Chinese star this week, and the Austrian herself acknowledged that the Briton has been playing very well in Guangzhou. A title in the Guangzhou final on Sunday would make Tagger a two-time WTA champion at 18.