Bellis to meet Zhang in Hawaii Open final

The final match of the inaugural Hawaii Open will feature the tournament’s highest-ranked player against a teenager riding a 14-match win streak.

Top-seeded Shuai Zhang of China and Northern California teen CiCi Bellis weathered strong breezes and tough second-set challenges Saturday at Central Oahu Regional Park to advance to today’s 1 p.m. final of the Women’s Tennis Association 125K Series event.

Bellis, the tournament’s fourth seed, raced ahead early, then held off Jacqueline Cako 6-0, 6-4 in Saturday’s first semifinal. Zhang’s serve then helped propel her past sixth-seeded Evgeniya Rodina 6-2, 6-3 to set up the first meeting between the finalists.

“She’s played really well and she’s really talented,” Zhang said of the 17-year-old Bellis. “Hopefully we can play a great match (today), a great final.”

Separated by nearly a decade in age and 69 spots in the Women’s Tennis Association rankings (at least for now), Zhang and Bellis will end the week at CORP seeking a breakthrough win.

Zhang, 27, won her lone WTA title in 2013 and has 19 International Tennis Federation wins in her career, including two this year, and began the week 23rd in the WTA rankings.

Saturday’s semifinal appearance was Bellis’ first in a WTA event and she’s pursuing her third straight tournament title following two ITF wins in Canada in October. She’ll jump up the WTA rankings from No. 92 after this week’s run.

“I think it’s going to help me (having) a lot of final matches under my belt and a lot of matches in general under my belt. So I’m really confident going into tomorrow,” Bellis said.

“I think it’s been the best week of my tennis career, and I’m so excited about that.”

Bellis breezed through her first three matches of the week and lost just seven points in dominating the first set against Cako.

She went up a break to open the second set and had won nine straight games when Cako finally answered with a break of Bellis’ serve. Cako, who upset the tournament’s second and fifth seeds to reach the semis, kept Bellis on the move while closing to 5-4. Cako managed to fend off two match points, but her last forehand went wide on the third and Bellis took a seat on the court to catch her breath after the win.

“I just kind of started swinging out on everything — at that point I had nothing to lose,” Cako said. “I didn’t have much under me, my legs are tired. … CiCi’s a great player and you have to be firing on all cylinders. Unfortunately I didn’t have it in me today.”

Zhang began the year with a run to the quarterfinals of the Australian Open and, like Bellis, reached the third round of the U.S. Open in August. She won an ITF stop in Tokyo in her last tournament before heading to Hawaii.

Although the rain that bedeviled tournament officials throughout the week stayed away, the players dealt with gusty tradewinds on Saturday.

“When I serve it’s going different ways, so it’s really tough,” Zhang said. ‘But I played really well and really happy to be in a another final this year.”

Her serve proved pivotal with Zhang and Rodina tied 3-3 in the second set. She fought off a break point with an ace and went ahead with another before holding serve. She promptly broke Rodina’s serve and fired two more aces to take control in the final game.

The tournament’s doubles title was decided in the dark of Saturday morning with top-seeded Eri Hozumi and Miyu Kato of Japan holding off the third-seeded duo of Nicole Gibbs and Asia Muhammad 6-7 (3), 6-3, 10-8.

Friday’s rain pushed the schedule back and Gibbs and Muhammad defeated Rodina and Olga Govortsova 6-3, 6-2 in a semifinal that ended just after 10 p.m. They were back on the court about 20 minutes later for the final and split the first two sets to force a 10-point tiebreaker. Hozumi and Kato went up 4-0, but Gibbs and Muhammad surged ahead at 8-7. Two errors gave Hozumi the serve at match point and Kato put away the final point at the net to end the match at 12:07 a.m.