Pan Pacific Open Round-Up: Mission complete as Elena Rybakina books last WTA Finals spot with Mboko win

Elena Rybakina can look forward to the WTA Finals in Riyadh after she took down Victoria Mboko to reach the semi-finals of the Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo. The Kazakh ace had a mission improbable type angle going into the last few weeks but could yet end up with back-to-back WTA 500 titles come the end of this week.

With a win against Mboko, she isn't just into another semi-final, she will also go to Riyadh. After winning Ningbo last week, she had her own destiny in her hands to earn the eighth and final spot at the WTA Finals. She needed to pass at Mirra Andreeva but started the week on zero due to the fact that they only count a certain amount of tournaments so on paper if it was done differently she would've needed to win only one game.

As it was she needed to get to the semi-finals and she managed to succeed with that having took down Leylah Fernandez on Wednesday followed by Mboko on Friday in a double Canadian triumph. She won 6-3, 7-6(4) against Mboko who hadn't won a match until this week since she won the Montreal title which also include as her penultimate win seeing off Rybakina. There Mboko came from a set behind and saved a match point to win in three sets. She saved a set point on serve this time trailing 6-4 in the second set but managed to take some semblance of revenge and further her own ambitions in the process.

She out served and out hit Mboko winning the first three games, all three were tightly contested. After saving a break point, she consolidated that break of serve by escaping a tight third game to head towards winning the first set. Mboko looked to hit back immediately and had the keys as she stayed in front for the majority of the second set as both players erased one break point within the first 12 games. The Canadian stopped Rybakina at 3-3 and Rybakina came up with it clutch at 5-6 30-40 while staring down a third set. It was a high quality tie and despite not winning a set, it's been a good week for Mboko who managed to banish her demons of not living up to the hype developed after winning Montreal.

Both hit more winners than 11 unforced errors but Rybakina's 23 winners won against Mboko's 17 in the end. "It was a very difficult match against Victoria -- the last time, it was the same battle," Rybakina said afterwards. "I'm very happy that today I managed to win in two sets. In the second set, we were  going so close, both serving really well, so I'm glad that I could push a little bit more in the tiebreak and win in two sets.

"I'm happy that my serve was working pretty well ... on the return, I was trying to move a bit position, but again she was serving so well that it was really difficult. Even when I caught the ball on the racquet, it was still too hard to put it in. It was a very tough, very close match, but I'm happy with the result."

She now plays Linda Noskova who battled past Anna Kalinskaya who had to retire from their clash after a back injury for the Russian saw her have to retire down 6-0, 1-0. Only one result awaits and that is Bencic v Muchova as Ekaterina Alexandrova's wonderful season all but comes to a close. Reaching the top 10 and losing last week to Rybakina in the final, it is instead Sofia Kenin who has a late season revival she came from winning the first set 6-0 to having to play out a tie-break decider.