Aryna Sabalenka beat Belinda Bencic 7-5 6-2 to reach the quarter-finals of the Australian Open for the first time on Monday, following dropping serve early before sending her Swiss opponent out of the tournament.
The 24-year-old from Belarus will face Croatian Donna Vekic or young Czech Linda Frovertova in the quarter-finals, as she looks to book a place in the semi-finals of a Grand Slam for the fourth time.
And with the exit of the leading candidate to win the title, Asia Chiantik, in the fourth round on Sunday, the race to win the Daphne Oakhurst Cup appears wide open this year. And Sabalenka appears to have as good a chance as any player of winning her first major slam if she can overcome the odds that sometimes arise when she doesn’t perform as hard and as well as she would like.
In the first seven games of the match between the two Adelaide champions before the start of the Australian Open, the Belarusian was shaking her head and muttering to herself as she made 12 unforced errors and lost serve to Swiss Bencic.
There were only six more break points during the rest of the match, as Sabalenka found her rhythm and began firing her serve with powerful forehands as well to put Bencic under great pressure.
And she broke her opponent’s serve to tie 4-4, and survived the fluctuation of performance following a double fault in the serve strike when Bencic threatened to break her serve immediately following, and advanced 1-0 in the groups when her Swiss opponent committed a double fault on the winning set point.
Sabalenka advanced 3-1 quickly in the second set, and responded once more strongly when Bencic advanced 30-0 in the seventh game and decided to win the match with a powerful forehand kick to achieve her 32nd successful hit in the match.
“I’m so happy to win today, she’s an incredible player and she played really well,” she said. Very happy with the level today.”
Sabalenka credited her eight-match winning streak since the start of the season to her fitness coach, but admitted she was still learning how to deal with setbacks on the court.
“It takes me a while to understand that negative emotions won’t help you on the court,” she added. You just have to stay strong and believe in yourself no matter what you do, while giving your all to get back on track. Just so happy with my mentality today. I hope I can continue that.”
Fourth seed Caroline Garcia will also play in the fourth round later in the day, while nine-time men’s singles champion Novak Djokovic, who suffers from a hamstring injury, will be in the spotlight when he takes on Australian Alex de Minaur this evening.
