Kim Birrell claims her first WTA title but loses top spot in Australian women's tennis rankings

Kim Birrell has been left reflecting on an emotional and thrilling breakthrough day for Australian women's tennis in south-east Asia as she scooped the first WTA title of her career, while also losing her national number one ranking.

Birrell rocketed into the world's top-50 for the first time with her long-awaited maiden triumph at the Korea Open WTA 250 event while admitting her landmark day wasn't easy as she had to get there by beating her Australian pal Maya Joint in the final.

While the popular 28-year-old Queenslander was celebrating her victory with sympathetic words for her young tearful compatriot, Talia Gibson was annexing her Australian number one ranking elsewhere on the Asian swing.

Gibson, another player enjoying a breakthrough 2026 campaign, had reached the Singapore Open final on the same day and even though she lost to Canadian Leylah Fernandez, missing out on her maiden title, her big points haul at the bigger WTA 500 event meant she will leapfrog Birrell in the rankings.

Birrell capped her breakthrough year, which had featured a sensational win over Jessica Pegula in the French Open, with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over Joint in the Seoul final.

It was the first all-Australian WTA championship match since Sam Stosur beat Daria Gavrilova at Strasbourg in 2017, with Queenslander Birrell ending up finally lifting a trophy after losing her two previous finals in Osaka in 2024 and Chennai last year.

"It was quite difficult for us today because we are very good friends," Birrell said before speaking directly to Joint.

"You've had a tough year, I know. I hope you know how proud I am of you and how amazing you are."

Joint has had an up-and-down year, with a back injury and a long losing sequence finally ended when she earned her triumph over the returning Serena Williams at Wimbledon that made worldwide headlines.

"It's tough against a friend and I'm really proud of you," Joint said, congratulating her compatriot.

Europe downs Team World at Laver Cup

A day after Alex de Minaur beat Alexander Zverev to keep Team World's hopes alive in the Laver Cup, a doubles loss featuring the Australian and American Taylor Fritz ended Andre Agassi's team's bid for victory.

Agassi had planned to lean on de Minaur again after the doubles to take on Carlos Alcaraz, but the loss to Italy's Flavio Cobolli and Czech Jakub Mensik meant Europe took an unassailable lead in the competition.

"We were very close," de Minaur said.

"Yesterday, we won two supers [10-point tiebreakers] and lost one with Taylor playing an epic match.

"We were up against it from the get-go; we were the underdogs and put in a hell of a fight. A couple points here and there could have changed the whole tie."

Click here to read article