Iga Swiatek again denied Middle East double after shock defeat in Dubai Tennis semi-finals

After successfully navigating her way through a tough draw to reach the semi-finals, the path looked to have cleared for Iga Swiatek to clinch a historic Middle East Masters double.

Defeated at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships were a former US Open champion, a two-time Dubai champion, and the most recent Australian Open finalist, but where Sloane Stephens, Elina Svitolina, and Qinwen Zheng failed, world No 40 Anna Kalinskaya succeeded.

Of all the world No 1's opponents this week, Kalinskaya would have appeared the least challenging. The Russian had to come through qualifying and had only ever visited one WTA Tour final in her career.

Yet, her superb quarter-final victory over third seed Coco Gauff on Thursday showed that she would be no pushover, and so it proved as Kalinskaya sealed the biggest win of her career – 24 hours after her previous biggest – 6-4, 6-4.

"It's a bit surprising, for sure," Kalinskaya , 25, said. "I wasn't feeling very well before the tournament. I had to play [qualifiers]. I stayed in the moment just match by match. I'm super happy to be in the final. I can't believe it yet. But tomorrow is just another day. I'm looking forward to play my first big final."

The defeat ended Swiatek's eight-match winning run that included a third straight Qatar Open title and denied her a second successive opportunity to complete the Doha-Dubai double. The top seed fell just short last year when she lost to Barbora Krejcikova in the final.

Swiatek was seeking to become just the third woman to win the Qatar and Dubai tournaments in the same season after Martina Hingis in 2001 and Justine Henin in 2007. However, she would have been the first to achieve it since both tournaments received elevated Masters