No.2 seed Naomi Osaka withdrew from the Gippsland Cup on Saturday ahead of her semifinal match against No.7 seed Elise Mertens, giving Belgium a safe path through to her first final of the 2021 season.
The 2019 Australian Open champion announced a “niggling injury” for the precautionary step ahead of the start of this year’s first Grand Slam event, which starts in two days.
While Mertens reached two finals in 2020, on the clay courts in Prague and the hard indoor courts at Linz, Belgium will play for its first single title since winning at Qatar Total Open in Doha in early 2019.
Seed No.9 seed Russia’s Ekaterina Alexandrova and Estonia’s former Top 20 player Kaia Kanepi will play in another semifinal on Saturday for a place opposite Mertens.
World No.20 has a career-to-end 1-1 record against the prospective duo.