Iva Jovic has won her maiden WTA title, defeating Emiliana Arango in Sunday's final of Guadalajara Open Akron by 6-4 6-1. It was a week of emerging new teenage WTA tournament winners, as Tiantsoa Sarah Rakotomanga Rajaonah won the WTA 250 Sao Paulo Open by winning over Janice Tjen in another straight sets final by 6-3 6-4.
Jovic approached the final in Mexico after two consecutive demanding three-setters against Nikola Bartunkova and Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva. The 17 years-old was a favorite over the Colombian who made it into second WTA 500 final in Mexico that year following her run in Merida half a year ago. Interestingly, Arango has recorded all of her 8 main tour victories on hard court just in those two tournaments. The Colombian was impressive during the week in Guadalajara though, dominating her opponents in the draw which opened with after the top seeds faced major upsets during the week. The Sunday's final was expected to be a battle of two players who are aggresive and efficient on return, related to their statistics. That materialized with 5 consecutive breaks since the middle of first set. The decisive one went into Jovic's account and granted her with leading by set on the scoreline. The Colombian looked quite lost on the court since then, being not able to win any service game till the end (just 2 out of 8 won in the whole final), easily losing to Jovic who was more and more confident while closing to the finish line. The youngster did not look intimidated when getting a chance of her career's best success so far, while Arango did not step up to make this fight competitive anymore with just 31% of first serve points and 29% of second serve points in second set.
Rakotomanga Rajaonah has delivered quite a significant upset related to pre-match odds, while being rated 3.95 against Janice Tjen who was the first Indonesian since 2002 to get into final of WTA Tour tournament. This was mainly because the stunning Tjen's form on hard courts, as she won 58 out of 66 matches in all the levels in 2025. Vast majority of those was achieved in ITF circuit, but the qualifiaction to main draw and getting into second round of US Open followed by great run to final in Sao Paulo without losing a set on the road, looked like a promise of successful transition to the highest level. The Indonesian was putting on the 19 years-old since the start, but wasted 4 breakpoints in opening games to get broken by the French in 6th game. Both the players shared two breaks in following games but it was Rakotomanga Rajaonah who quite surprisingly clinched the opening set. She followed the good flow, gaining two another breaks to set up the straightforward path into victory in second set. The French has impressed with maturity, not being shy to handle the pressure of winning first career's title and sealed it with three confident holds since being 3-2 up. It was a competitive match from both sides, but the 19 years-old won more than a half of pressure points on both the serve and return, which occured to be decisive to get this victory.
Ranking movements
The new WTA 500 champion moves up to 36th place in WTA ranking, gaining 37 spots. All the surprising semifinalists who were unseeded in main draw record the significant boost in the rank. Emiliana Arango is now the world number 51 (up by 33 places), Elsa Jacquemot lifts up by 21 spots to be 62th since Monday, while Nikola Bartunkova moves by 84 places to enter the top 150. The winner of Sao Paulo Open moves by almost 100 places into career's highest 131th. Janice Tjen has missed a chance to enter the top 100 for the first time in her career just by a margin, moving up to 103th place.