WASHINGTON (AP) — Alejandro Davidovich Fokina broke big-serving Ben Shelton a half-dozen times and eliminated the No. 4 seed by a 6-2, 7-5 score in the D.C. Open semifinals Saturday to follow up his upset of No. 1 seed Taylor Fritz a night earlier.
The 12th-seeded Davidovich Fokina, a 26-year-old from Spain, will face No. 7 seed Alex de Minaur on Sunday for the title at the hard-court tournament. De Minaur advanced to his second Washington final by beating Corentin Moutet 6-4, 6-3.
Davidovich Fokina will be seeking his first ATP trophy in his fourth career final. No matter the outcome, he has guaranteed himself a debut in the top 20 of the rankings after arriving in D.C. at No. 26.
The semifinal win was de Minaur’s 20th victory on a hard court in 2025, the most on the ATP tour. The Australian, who is 13th in the rankings, moved into his 19th career final; he’s 9-9 so far. One of the runner-up finishes came against Alexander Zverev at Washington in 2018.
In the women's bracket, Leylah Fernandez will be trying to win her first WTA title of the season, and Anna Kalinskaya will seek the first of her career when they meet each other Sunday.
Fernandez, the runner-up at the 2021 U.S. Open, hit 12 aces and picked up her second victory of the week against a top-20 opponent by beating 2022 Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina 6-7 (2), 7-6 (3), 7-6 (3) across 3 hours, 16 minutes in the semifinals.
Kalinskaya needed less than half as much time to eliminate Emma Raducanu 6-4, 6-3 with the help of 14 backhand winners in the other women's semifinal. It was Raducanu who defeated Fernandez for the championship at Flushing Meadows four years ago.
Both women's finalists are unseeded. Canada's Fernandez, who is 22 years old, is ranked 36th; Russia's Kalinskaya, 26, is ranked 48th.
Kalinskaya moved into her third tour-level final. She went 0-2 in title matches last season.
Fernandez, who got past top-seeded Jessica Pegula earlier in the week, owns three titles. Sunday's matchup will be her seventh career final.
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The Associated Press
