Sofia Kenin was in floods of tears on Saturday as she suffered an injury the day before her Japan Open final.

The American notched big wins over Daria Kasatkina and Katie Boulter to set up a finale against top seed Qinwen Zheng on Sunday. And the stakes are high, with Kenin not having won a WTA singles event since the Lyon Open more than four years ago.

Ahead of the big showdown, Kenin hit trouble in her women’s doubles semi-final alongside Bethanie Mattek-Sands. The American pair were 5-2 down against Laura Siegemund and Ena Shibahara in the first set when Kenin decided that she could not continue.

With the realisation kicking in that she had not only lost out on the chance to notch another doubles title, but her singles campaign was also in jeopardy, Kenin shed tears on court while Siegemund and Shibahara were handed a safe passage through.

If the singles final goes ahead, Kenin will need to be at her very best to upset the odds and topple Zheng. Kenin is still ranked outside the world’s top 150 while her Chinese opponent is up in seventh.

Injuries and struggles for form have seen Kenin tumble down the world rankings from a career-high fourth in March 2020. At that time she was fresh off the back of a red-hot 18 months in which she won five WTA Tour titles and an Australian Open. Two months later she would lose the French Open final to Iga Swiatek.

Kenin’s run to the Japan Open final has come completely out of the blue. Before arriving in Tokyo, the Florida-based competitor suffered back-to-back first-round exits at the Japan Women’s Open and the Wuhan Open.

Those disappointing results were merely extensions of what has been a frustrating season on the singles circuit, with Kenin failing to even reach a quarter-final since Guadalajara last September.

She battled past three seeded opponents to reach this weekend’s final in Japan. Wang Xinyu was dispatched in the first round before subsequent wins over Clara Tauson and Kasatkina.

Kenin’s semi-final win over Boulter finished just hours before she went back out on court for her doubles assignment. It remains to be seen whether she can recover in time to chase singles glory on Sunday.