Harriet Dart rallies past Paula Badosa to reach Guangzhou Open semi-finals

Harriet Dart beat fifth seed Paula Badosa 3-6 6-2 6-4 at the Guangzhou Open in China on 30 October 2026 to reach the semi-finals, the match lasting two hours and 15 minutes at the Nansha International Tennis Centre.

The 30-year-old, ranked 115th, moved into the second WTA Tour semi-final of her career after coming through qualifying and having defeated second seed Janice Tjen in the previous round. Dart’s first tour-level semi-final came at the Transylvania Open in Cluj-Napoca, where she lost in straight sets to Karolina Pliskova.

Dart dropped the opening set after losing her first service game but broke back to level at 3-3 before Badosa secured a break for a 5-3 lead and held to take the set 6-3. The second set featured early exchanged breaks and then Dart took control to win it 6-2.

In the decider Badosa saved a match point at 5-3 and then broke Dart’s serve, but the Spaniard, ranked 61st in the world, was unable to hold in her next service game as Dart won it to love to seal the 6-4 final set. Badosa required two medical timeouts during the match and appeared to struggle with the heat.

Dart said: "It's been a very long time since I've been in the business end of the tournament so I am really excited for that." She added: "It was an incredible battle. I thought Paula started really strongly. I was always behind, and knew it was going to be an incredibly tough match. I really needed to hang in there during the tough moments and wait for a chance. Luckily I was able to take my chance, and I am very excited to be in the semi-finals."

Working with former Wimbledon champion Marion Bartoli, whom Dart has been training with in an ad hoc coaching partnership after they began working together earlier this year and who still "hits a good ball" in practice, has been cited by Dart as a significant factor in her recent upswing. Since Wimbledon she has won 17 of 22 tour-level matches on hard courts and has an overall WTA Tour record this season of 21 victories from 32 matches, the highest winning percentage of her career.

The run from Guangzhou qualifying to the last four puts Dart on the cusp of the top 100 once again and "means she has a good chance of going straight into the main draw of the Australian Open in January without needing to qualify." She will face either American Claire Liu or 16-year-old Chinese wildcard Sun Xinran in the semi-finals on Saturday.