WTA 125 titles mark turning points for Golubic, Juvan and Bejlek
With the season’s closing chapters unfolding, Viktorija Golubic, Kaja Juvan and Sara Bejlek seized WTA 125 crowns in China, Türkiye and Italy, their hard-won victories blending tactical sharpness with the quiet resolve of players rebuilding momentum amid setbacks.
Last week, Viktorija Golubic, Kaja Juvan and Sara Bejlek each lifted WTA 125 singles trophies in tournaments scattered across China, Türkiye and Italy, their triumphs underscoring a circuit where resilience meets opportunity in the late-season grind. These events, blending hard courts and clay under varying skies, tested not just strokes but the mental edges honed through injury recoveries and ranking fluctuations. As the tour accelerates toward year-end qualifiers, each champion’s path revealed how small adjustments in rally construction and point construction can reclaim lost ground.
Golubic forges ahead in Suzhou heat
At 32, Viktorija Golubic arrived in Suzhou building on a 15-match winning streak that carried her from the end of 2024 into 2025, her second tour-level title from Jiujiang still fueling her drive. Seeded No. 6 at the Suzhou Open, she claimed her fifth WTA 125 singles crown by navigating a draw thick with upsets, her game emphasizing deeper groundstrokes to disrupt rhythm on the outdoor hard courts. The Swiss player’s semifinal against No. 2 seed Tatjana Maria pitted single-handed backhands in a stylistic clash, where Golubic’s topspin slices and aggressive baseline steps secured a 6-3, 6-3 win, turning Maria’s drop shots into opportunities for down-the-line passes.
Her quarterfinal against No. 4 seed Alexandra Eala escalated into a thriller, with Golubic facing two match points at 6-5 in the third set before firing 10 straight points—crosscourt forehands blending with inside-out backhands—to escape 2-6, 6-2, 7-6(0). That surge carried into the final, where she trailed Katie Volynets by a set and a break in a three-hour duel, only to break back with precise returns and steady one–two combinations for a 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 reversal. The victory, echoing the humid intensity of Chinese hard-court battles, positions her for deeper runs in upcoming events.
Upsets defined the singles draw, as No. 1 seed Iva Jovic fell 6-4, 7-6(3) in the first round to Lulu Sun, the previous week’s Jingshan champion, who then lost 2-6, 6-4, 6-2 to lucky loser Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva. The Andorran pushed to her fourth WTA 125 semifinal of the season before Volynets stopped her 7-5, 6-2 with powerful serves and net rushes. In doubles, Indonesian No. 4 seeds Aldila Sutjiadi and Janice Tjen, teaming for just their second pro event, swept to their first WTA 125 title without dropping a set, defeating Katarzyna Kawa and Makoto Ninomiya 6-4, 6-3 through volleys and well-timed lobs.
Juvan rebuilds fire on Black Sea courts
Kaja Juvan, once as high as No. 58, started 2025 unranked after 13 months out with a shoulder nerve issue, but her Samsun Open triumph on Türkiye’s Black Sea hard courts now places her on the cusp of the Top 100. Following a clay title in Ljubljana four weeks earlier, the 24-year-old No. 2 seed adapted her game to the quicker surface, relying on flatter shots and body serves to shorten points against power players. This hard-court shift, after her recent clay success, diversifies her profile just as rankings points become critical.
In the quarterfinals, she outlasted No. 7 seed Maria Timofeeva—the 2023 Budapest champion—6-3, 4-6, 6-2, using underspin backhands to counter flat groundstrokes and inside-out forehands to open the court. The semifinals demanded endurance against Poland’s Linda Klimovicova, a 2-hour-40-minute affair where Juvan missed two set points in a 6-7(9) tiebreak but reset with deeper returns for a 6-4, 6-2 comeback. Facing No. 3 seed Nikola Bartunkova in the final, the 19-year-old Czech who had reached her first tour-level semifinal in Guadalajara, Juvan overcame a 5-2 first-set deficit, saving three set points in a 7-6(8) tiebreak before closing 6-3 with crosscourt angles that forced errors.
Comeback narratives faltered elsewhere, with former World No. 1 Karolina Pliskova losing 6-4, 6-3 in her second post-ankle surgery event to North Macedonia’s Lina Gjorcheska. French No. 1 seed Tiantsoa Rakotomanga Rajaonah, fresh from Sao Paulo, exited 6-2, 7-5 in the second round to compatriot Amandine Hesse, but rebounded in doubles with Switzerland’s Naima Karamoko—their first tournament together—to defeat British No. 1 seeds Harriet Dart and Maia Lumsden, last week’s Caldas da Rainha winners, 7-5, 1-6, 10-6 in the super-tiebreak. This marked each woman’s initial WTA 125 doubles title, built on net play and resilient returns.
Bejlek regains poise on Italian clay
Sara Bejlek’s 2025 had zigzagged from a June Makarska WTA 125 title—preceded by her second Top 30 win over Marta Kostyuk at Roland Garros—to a left leg injury that skipped Wimbledon, followed by a Prague quarterfinal and a US Open qualifying loss to Destanee Aiava. The 19-year-old Czech No. 4 seed steadied her season at the Internazionali di Calabria in Rende, Italy, on clay that suited her sliding footwork, securing her third WTA 125 singles trophy and second of the year with a 6-2, 6-7(1), 6-3 final win over Serbia’s Lola Radivojevic. This result, amid the tournament’s slower rallies, eases months of inconsistency and sets her for clay-season extensions.
Bejlek handled finesse opponents in succession, grinding past Italy’s Nuria Brancaccio 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 in the quarterfinals by pulling wide with inside-in backhands and exploiting the surface’s grip for angles. Her semifinal was more commanding, a 6-3, 6-2 rout of Poland’s Maja Chwalinska, where heavy topspin forehands and one–two serve-forehand patterns controlled the tempo. Radivojevic, 20, reached her first WTA 125 final by outlasting former Roland Garros semifinalist Tamara Zidansek 4-6, 7-5, 6-2 with drops and slices, even erasing a 4-0 second-set hole against Bejlek to force a tiebreak—but the Czech dominated the decider with deeper returns and crosscourt winners.
In doubles, Nicole Fossa Huergo and Ekaterine Gorgodze, partnering for the first time, edged an all-Italian final against Federica Urgesi and Aurora Zantedeschi 3-6, 6-1, 10-4. The Georgian Gorgodze earned her fifth WTA 125 doubles title, her volleys meshing with the Arizona State alumna Fossa Huergo’s baseline depth on the clay. These outcomes across the trio of events not only boost rankings but inject confidence, priming Golubic, Juvan and Bejlek for the tour’s decisive final acts where every match sharpens the edge for greater contention.
