Skip to main content
Tennis Roundup logo
Singapore Tennis Open 2026 Final - Leylah Fernandez Finishes the Fight

Singapore Tennis Open 2026 Final: Leylah Fernandez Finishes the Fight

    Leylah Fernandez spent much of her Singapore week fighting.

    On Sunday, she finished it as champion.

    The Canadian No. 6 seed defeated Australia’s Talia Gibson 7–5, 6–0 in the Singapore Tennis Open final, completing a tournament run that repeatedly asked Fernandez to find another answer.

    This time, there was no comeback required.

    After Gibson pushed the opening set to 5–5 territory, Fernandez closed it 7–5. Then the resistance disappeared from the scoreboard.

    Six straight games.

    A 6–0 second set.

    And the Singapore title belonged to Fernandez.

    Watch: Fernandez vs Gibson highlights
    YouTube video player

    From 1–6 Down to Champion

    Twenty-four hours earlier, this ending looked considerably less comfortable.

    Poland’s Maja Chwalinska had overwhelmed Fernandez at the beginning of their semifinal, taking the first set 6–1 after winning the opening five games and, at one stage, 15 consecutive points.

    Fernandez responded by changing the match.

    She won the first eight points of the second set, eventually took it 6–4 and then controlled the deciding set for a 1–6, 6–4, 6–2 victory after 2 hours and 8 minutes. She finished that match with 31 winners and repeatedly moved forward, approaching the net 37 times.

    It sent Fernandez into her first WTA Tour final of 2026 and the ninth of her career.

    One day later, she didn’t need three sets.

    Fernandez’s Singapore Run Went Through the No. 1 Seed

    The title wasn’t built only during the weekend.

    In the quarterfinals, Fernandez faced Singapore’s No. 1 seed, Mirra Andreeva.

    Fernandez defeated her 6–2, 7–5, recording her biggest win of the season and her ninth career victory over a Top 10 opponent.

    Even when Andreeva recovered from 2–5 in the second set and leveled at 5–5, Fernandez found another break in the 12th game and closed the match in straight sets.

    That became another piece of the pattern Singapore kept revealing.

    When Fernandez was challenged, she kept finding a way through.

    Talia Gibson’s Breakthrough Week

    The final score shouldn’t erase what Singapore represented for Gibson.

    The Australian arrived at the championship match having never previously played a WTA Tour-level final.

    She defeated France’s Fiona Ferro 6–3, 6–3 in the opening round and later upset No. 7 seed Maria Sakkari 6–1, 4–6, 6–2 in the quarterfinals.

    Her semifinal against Tatiana Prozorova was never played.

    Prozorova, who had produced another comeback against Wang Xinyu in the quarterfinals, withdrew after suffering a concussion. Gibson therefore advanced by walkover into the first tour-level final of her career.

    Fernandez ultimately stopped the breakthrough one victory short of the trophy.

    But Gibson leaves Singapore having reached a place she had never reached before.

    Singapore Started With One Hierarchy. It Finished With Another.

    When the tournament began, Fernandez wasn’t supposed to be the central name.

    Mirra Andreeva was the No. 1 seed.

    Amanda Anisimova was No. 2.

    Alex Eala arrived as the newly elevated No. 3 seed.

    Defending champion Elise Mertens was No. 4.

    Fernandez was No. 6.

    One by one, those expectations changed.

    Eala fell in her opening match.

    Mertens was stopped by Chwalinska.

    Andreeva ran into Fernandez.

    And by Sunday evening, the No. 6 seed was the last woman standing.

    Fernandez Finishes What She Started

    Singapore was the opening tournament of the WTA Tour’s 2026 Asian Swing and the first edition of the Singapore Tennis Open since its upgrade to WTA 500 status.

    Fernandez arrived without a final appearance this season.

    She leaves with the trophy.

    There were easier ways she could have done it.

    Instead, her route included the tournament’s top seed, a semifinal in which she lost the opening set 6–1, and a final whose competitive opening set eventually gave way to a 6–0 finish.

    The fighting stopped only when there was nobody left to beat.

    Leylah Fernandez is the 2026 Singapore Tennis Open champion.

    Table Of Contents

    Sharing is caring!