Magda Linette beats Janice Tjen in Chennai final delayed by rain and smog

Magda Linette won the Chennai Open on Monday, 9 November 2026, coming from a set down to beat top seed and defending champion Janice Tjen 5-7, 6-1, 6-4. The WTA 250 final had been scheduled for Sunday evening but was pushed back by a day after rain and then heavy smog settled over the SDAT Tennis Stadium.

The third seed's win, completed in close to three hours, gives her a fourth WTA title and her first since Prague in 2024.

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Janice Tjen vs. Magda Linette | 2026 Chennai Final | WTA Match Highlights — WTA · YouTube, plays on click

From rain delay to smog postponement

The singles final was due on court on Sunday evening, after the doubles final. Rain held up the start, and once the court had dried the match was moved to a later slot. By then, smoke from Diwali fireworks had spread across the city, and the final was eventually called off for the day, according to Khel Now and EssentiallySports. The WTA's own report cited rain and confirmed the new start time of 11am local time on Monday.

Tjen was not impressed by how the evening was handled. On her Instagram story she shared an air-quality reading of 1,556 and wrote: "And they still wanted the match to go ahead," as reported by EssentiallySports and the Sunday Guardian. No response from the organisers was reported.

The doubles final went ahead as planned on Sunday: Swiss pair Naïma Karamoko and Simona Waltert beat India's Vaishnavi Adkar and Rutuja Bhosale 6-2, 6-0 to win their first title together. Adkar and Bhosale were the first all-Indian team to reach a WTA doubles final, the WTA noted.

Linette turns the final around

When play finally began on Monday, the first set was tight and long. It lasted just over an hour, and Tjen broke Linette late on to take it 7-5, according to Eurosport and WP SportoweFakty.

The second set was one-way traffic. Linette became more aggressive on return, broke for a 4-1 lead and closed it out 6-1 as Tjen's serve wobbled. The decider was more nervous: Linette led 3-1, Tjen fought back to 3-3, but the Pole broke again in the seventh game and served out the title at the third match point.

Linette had already shown resilience during the week. In the quarter-finals she came from a set and a break down, and then a break down in the decider, to beat Mai Hontama 4-6, 7-5, 6-4, as reported by Tennis Majors. She then beat seventh seed Anastasia Zakharova to reach her second Chennai final, four years after losing the 2022 title match to Linda Fruhvirtova.

A title defence that fell one match short

Tjen arrived in Chennai as the top seed and as the reigning champion. In 2025 she beat Kimberly Birrell 6-4, 6-3 in the final to become the first Indonesian woman to win a WTA title since Angelique Widjaja in 2002. This year she was trying to become the first player to win the Chennai title twice, the WTA noted.

The final was still her best singles result of a difficult 2026, in which she had lost early at many events, as CNN Indonesia pointed out. Her season and results are on our Janice Tjen player page.

The last Chennai Open?

The smog and the late finish came in what is expected to be the tournament's final edition in India. Khel Now and EssentiallySports report, as did Tennis Watcher citing journalist Ben Rothenberg, that a new WTA 250 event in Manila will take Chennai's place from 2027, helped by the growing popularity of Alexandra Eala in the Philippines.

What it means

For Linette, the title ends a wait of more than two years and shows she can still win long, physical matches late in the season. For Tjen, the defence fell one set short, but a final is a strong way to finish a year of early exits.

The postponement will also add to the debate about playing in poor air quality. Tjen's public complaint, posted with a reading of 1,556, put the issue in front of a wide audience on the final weekend of the regular WTA season. Attention on the women's tour now turns to the WTA Finals, which close the 2026 season.