BEIJING, October 23. /TASS/. Russian tennis star Diana Shnaider secured a place in the semifinals of the 2026 Ningbo Open tournament in China by defeating US player Iva Jovic on Friday.

In the match that lasted 2 hours and 11 minutes, the 6th-seeded Russian, who is competing as a neutral athlete at the tournament, defeated the 4th-seeded Jovic 6-3, 4-6, 6-1.

"It was a very high-quality match from both of us," the official WTA website quoted Shnaider as saying after her match against Jovic.

"Second set was very close, but she played better - she was a little bit more aggressive and that's why she won. But I tried to regroup after the second set and fight for the third set," Shnaider added.

The Russian player is now set to take on World’s No. 1 Elena Rybakina from Kazakhstan in the semifinals. Rybakina earlier in the day beat Poland’s unseeded Katarzyna Kawa 6-1, 3-6, 6-1.

Shnaider, 22, is currently ranked 13th in the WTA Rankings. She has won five WTA titles. Her best Grand Slam result was reaching the semis at the 2026 French Open. At the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris, she captured a silver medal in women’s doubles with her partner Mirra Andreeva.

The 2026 Ningbo Open is a WTA 500 tournament held on hard courts at the Yinzhou Tennis Center in China from October 19 to 25, offering $1.2 million in prize money. Kazakhstan’s Elena Rybakina is the tournament’s reigning champion.

Russian players’ neutral status at tennis tournaments

On February 28, 2022, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued recommendations to international sports federations to exclude athletes from Russia and Belarus from participating 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 exclude 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 reaffirmed its prohibition on the Russian and Belarusian national tennis teams participating in the 2022 Davis Cup and 2022 Billie Jean King Cup.