Barty leads fresh faces into tournament finals

MASON, Ohio (AP) — Top-rankled Ash Barty became on Saturday the first of four newcomers to reach their first Western & Southern finals, The top-ranked Barty advanced to Sunday’s women’s final with a win over Angelique Kerber. No. 2 and top-seeded Daniil Medvedev was denied a third straight men’s final berth, losing to seventh-ranked and fourth-seeded Andrey Rublev in the first men’s semifinal.  Wild-card Jil Teichmann continued her run of upsets, adding Karolina Pliskova to a list of victims that already included Naomi Osaka and Belinda Bencic. Olympic men’s gold medalist Alexander Zverev overcame stomach problems to beat third-ranked and second-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (4).