Sunday was a very special day in the history of Australian tennis as Kim Birrell of Gold Coast defeated Maya Joint of Melbourne in an all-Australian WTA Final. Birrell defeated Joint 6-4, 6-2 in the final of the 2026 Korea Open in Seoul. This was the first all-Australian WTA Final in nine years.
Birrell won the match in one hour and 23 minutes. Birrell only had three double faults, while Joint had five double faults.
This was the first time in Birrell’s career that she played Joint. It is interesting that even though Birrell and Joint represent Australia, neither one of them were born in Australia. Birrell is a native of Dusseldorf, Germany, and Joint is a native of Grosse Pointe, Michigan.
In an interesting statistic, Birrell and Joint had been in two prior WTA Finals before. Birrell lost to Suzan Lamens of the Netherlands 6-0, 6-4 in the final of the 2024 Japan Women’s Open and Janice Tjen of Indonesia 6-4, 6-3 in the final of the 2025 Chennai Open in India. Joint had won her two prior WTA Finals. She beat Jaqueline Cristian of Romania 6-3, 6-2 in the 2025 Rabat Grand Prix in Morocco and global phenom Alexandra Eala of the Philippines 6-4, 6-2 in the 2025 Eastbourne Open final.
In Seoul this past week, the biggest upset came from another Australian. In the second round, Taylah Preston of Perth beat the number one seed and former French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia 6-4, 6-1. Joint also had an upset on her way to the final, as she defeated the Seoul Open’s third seed Lanlana Tararudee of Thailand, 6-4, 6-3.
With the win, Birrell moves from 60th in the world to 41st. The last all-Australian WTA Final came at the 2017 Strasbourg Final. Samantha Stosur of Gold Coast defeated Daria Gavrilova of Melbourne 5-7, 6-4, 6-3. This was Stosur’s last WTA title and ninth of her career.
