TASS, October 6. /TASS/. Russia's Lyudmila Samsonova moved on to the semifinals of the 2023 China Open tennis tournament after defeating Yelena Ostapenko of Latvia in straight sets 6-3; 6-2.

In the semifinals, the unseeded Samsonova will face 5th-seed Yelena Rybakina of Kazakhstan, who stunned World’s No.1 Arina Sobolenko from Belarus 7-5; 6-2 later in the day.

"I played really well today," the official website of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) quoted Rybakina as saying after the match."

"I served really well, so I'm really happy with my performance today. It's always tough battles against Arina and I really enjoy playing against her," Rybakina said without making mention of her upcoming match against Samsonova.

The other semifinal match at the 2023 China Open pits Coco Gauff of the United States against Poland’s Iga Swiatek.

The 24-year-old Samsonova is currently ranked 22nd in the Women’s Tennis Association Rankings and has four WTA titles under her belt. Playing on the Grand Slam circuit, she has never made it past the quarterfinals. In 2021, she won the Billie Jean King Cup as part of the Russian national team.

The 2023 China Open is an outdoor, hard-court tournament, which is categorized as a WTA 1,000 event on the 2023 WTA Tour calendar. It is being played in Beijing between September 30 and October 8 with a purse of $8.127 million in prize money up for grabs.

The tournament is taking place for the first time since 2019 after being canceled during the COVID-19 pandemic due to anti-coronavirus restrictions. In 2019, Japan’s Naomi Osaka won the championship trophy.

Among the Russians to win this tennis tournament in Beijing are Maria Sharapova (in 2014), Svetlana Kuznetsova (in 2006, 2009) and Maria Kirilenko (in 2005).

Russian players’ neutral status at tennis tournaments

On February 28, 2022, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued recommendations to international sports federations to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from taking part in international tournaments, citing Moscow’s special military operation in Ukraine as the reason.

Following the IOC’s recommendations in late February 2022, the majority of global sports federations decided to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from all international sports tournaments.

The International Tennis Federation (ITF) ruled on March 1, 2022 to suspend the membership of the Russian and Belarusian national tennis federations while also canceling all previously scheduled tennis tournaments in the two countries.

On March 14, 2022, the ITF also confirmed its prohibition on the Russian and Belarusian national tennis teams from taking part in the 2022 Davis Cup and 2022 Billie Jean King Cup.

However, the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) and the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) allowed tennis players from Russia and Belarus to continue participating in WTA and ATP tournaments, but only under a neutral status.