Aryna Sabalenka is two wins away from defending her Brisbane International title.<\/p>\n
But standing in her path is a red-hot Karolina Muchova, fresh off a three-set upset of No.3 seed Elena Rybakina and holding a 3\u20131 head-to-head advantage over the world No. 1.<\/p>\n
Sabalenka is yet to drop a set in 2026. The Belarusian, who has held the WTA No. 1 ranking for 64 consecutive weeks, showed no signs of slowing down with a commanding 6-3 6-3 victory over Madison Keys<\/a> \u2013 their first meeting on Australian soil since the AO 2025 final.<\/p>\n Sabalenka has won 36 of her past 38 matches in Australia and should she defeat Muchova, would extend her Brisbane winning streak to nine matches. She is chasing a third Brisbane International title at WTA 500 level, having lifted the trophy in 2023 and 2025 and reached the final in 2024.<\/p>\n Since the tournament\u2019s inception in 2009, only three players have won multiple titles at the event: former world No.1s Serena Williams, Karolina Pliskova and Victoria Azarenka.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m always super motivated when I come to Australia. I love playing here. I want to stay here as long as possible,\u201d Sabalenka said, pointing to the atmosphere and engagement of Australian crowds as a major source of motivation.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the people. I think the atmosphere, like here, it\u2019s always a full crowd. Everyone is really engaging a lot with tennis. Also [in] Melbourne, the support there is incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Muchova recorded her most significant win since the China Open in 2024, where she defeated both Sabalenka and Qinwen Zheng to reach the final. The Czech, who has battled chronic injury setbacks, took three sets to snap No.3 seed Elena Rybakina\u2019s 13-match win streak.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a very tough match \u2026 [Rybakina] is a very good athlete, top-3 or top-5 player, so I\u2019m just glad I was able to serve it out,\u201d Muchova said.<\/p>\n Muchova\u2019s road to the semifinal has also included wins over Alja Tomljanovic and seventh seed Ekaterina Alexandrova. Beyond her China Open run two years ago, she has also beaten Sabalenka on hard court in Cincinnati and on clay at Roland Garros in 2023; Sabalenka\u2019s lone win in the rivalry came in 2019.<\/p>\n With 17 wins over top-10 opponents, Muchova\u2019s tactical finesse and creativity presents a complex challenge for Sabalenka\u2019s raw power game.\u00a0<\/p>\n On the other side of the draw, fourth seed Jessica Pegula defeated Italy\u2019s Liudmila Samsonova 6-3 7-6(3) to book a semifinal clash with Ukraine\u2019s Marta Kostyuk.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Two years after reaching the quarterfinals in Brisbane, Kostyuk upset No.2 seed Amanda Anisimova and No.6 Mirra Andreeva to advance to her first WTA 500 semifinal since Stuttgart in April 2024.<\/p>\n \u201cI can say it 100 times — it\u2019s incredible to play in front of such a crowd. I never mind if people cheer against me. I just want the energy to keep going,\u201d said Kostyuk, who is seeking to defeat three top-10 opponents at a single tournament for the first time since Stuttgart.<\/p>\n Making her debut at the event, Pegula has claimed nine career WTA titles, six of them on hard courts. She holds a 4\u20131 head-to-head edge over Kostyuk, with recent wins at Miami and the China Open.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t miss out on the chance to be part of one of the most exciting tournaments of the year. Tickets for the Brisbane International are on sale via\u00a0Ticketmaster<\/a>. Prices start at $30. Premium Experiences are on sale via\u00a0Ticketmaster and the Premium Experiences Team.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aryna Sabalenka is two wins away from defending her Brisbane International title. But standing in her path is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[4909,64,63,176511,72820,85,747],"class_list":["post-402223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-aryna-sabalenka","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-brisbane-international-tennis-tournament","tag-news-article","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}