Katie Boulter v Eva Lys (20/10/2025)

Eva Lys has meant nothing but business in the last nearly four months. She has won the opening-round matches of her last seven tournaments, starting the streak at Wimbledon. The youngster put her foot on the gas in North America, leading to a quarterfinal in Cleveland, and has not ceased doing so in Asia.

A few weeks ago, she survived three consecutive three-set matches in Beijing, including upsetting Elena Rybakina for her maiden career top-10 win. As a reward, she joined her seventh career quarterfinal — and her first at WTA 1000 level — and confirmed her debut in the top-50 rankings, up from 129th place in January.

Eventually, the 23-year-old left the Chinese capital with a straight-set loss to Coco Gauff. Hoping to continue her winning ways in the final days of the season, she has kicked off her debut in Tokyo's Pan Pacific Open with two straight-set victories in qualifying, although she did need to fend off a tiebreak against Viktorija Golubic.

Katie Boulter landed in Tokyo having not won two matches in a row since her quarterfinal finish in Nottingham on home grass courts in June, despite appearing in nine tournaments in between. The Brit finally caught a break and managed to eke past Anna Blinkova and Kimberly Birrell in challenging three-set matches.

The 29-year-old, who was sidelined for a month and a half earlier this season, must recall her success in Asia last year, including here in Tokyo. She defeated Bianca Andreescu — and two other opponents — in straight sets for a semifinal finish in this city, and became the runner-up in Hong Kong the subsequent week.

Head-to-head: 0-0. Eva Lys will have her nose ahead against the substantially more experienced Katie Boulter, but must not take the three-time WTA champion for granted. Just last week, the Brit performed in another Japanese event in Osaka and upset Linda Noskova, 7-6, 6-3, for her fourth career top-20 win outside home.