Bradenton resident, top seed Wu Yibing wins 2026 Sarasota Open
· Yahoo Sports
BRADENTON – The singles final at the 2026 Elizabeth Moore Sarasota Open appeared at times to morph into the final episode of a season of Survivor.
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Top-seeded Wu Yibing, 26, and unseeded Stefan Dostanic, 24, slugged it out on the clay of the Nick Bollettieri Court at IMG Academy on Sunday afternoon, April 12, for more than two hours and three sets before the matter could be settled.
Yibing, who lives in Bradenton and trains at IMG, finally prevailed 6-1, 4-6, 6-3, winning the final three games of the third set to snatch the title.
Dostanic struggled throughout the first set, winning only eight points in the six games he lost. Somehow, he found his game in the second set and looked like a new man.
“I definitely honed in on my own unforced errors,” said Dostanic, who is from Irvine, Calif., and played his college tennis at Wake Forest. “He’s a powerful player and was pushing me around at times. I was thinking I was letting him attack.
“I was able to hit the ball a little bit heavier and create some short balls for myself and attack. At the end, he just really took it to me. It’s a credit to him to come out and hit some really big shots.”
Both players competed in five singles matches this week, including the finals, and looked fatigued at times. The best reason to enter any tournament is to try to win it, but it still makes for a longer work week.
“It’s naturally going to leave you a little tired and fatigued going into the final,” Dostanic said. “But you know that the guy on the other side feels just the same.
“It’s a lot mentally and physically, but we train for it. It’s what we do. Regroup and get ready for next week.
Next week for Dostanic, who entered the Sarasota Open with an ATP World Ranking of 333, is the $107,000 Tallahassee Open.
With a career-high world ranking of 54, Yibing, who was born in Hangzhou, China, entered this past week’s ATP Challenger event at No. 115. Yibing is heading to Spain to play his next tournament at the Madrid Open, which offers a purse of approximately $16 million.
“It was a good advantage that I played here at home,” Yibing said. “It was fantastic.
“The first few days, it was like, am I here to play or am I here to practice, that sort of thing. It also felt a little weird.”
Yibing, who has won more than $1.7 million during his professional career, snared a check for $17,000 for winning the Sarasota Open. Dostanic grabbed $9,600 of the tournament’s $107,000 purse as the runner-up.
“It’s definitely more mental playing on the clay court,” Yibing said. “There are more rallies. It was also windy and not easy these past few days. I’m glad I stayed strong.”
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Bradenton resident Wu Yibing wins 2026 Elizabeth Moore Sarasota Open