{"id":441294,"date":"2026-01-27T19:08:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T19:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/441294\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T19:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T19:08:10","slug":"sabalenka-overpowers-jovic-to-advance-to-ao-2026-semifinals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/441294\/","title":{"rendered":"Sabalenka overpowers Jovic to advance to AO 2026 semifinals"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cNo pain no gain,\u201d Aryna Sabalenka<\/a> wrote on fitness trainer Jason Stacy\u2019s head before stepping on to Rod Laver Arena on Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The world No.1 rode that motto to become the first woman through to the Australian Open 2026 semifinals, triumphing 6-3 6-0 over 29th seed Iva Jovic<\/a> in one hour and 29 minutes as Melbourne\u2019s temperature reached 38C.<\/p>\n

Sabalenka, the only player still standing in the women\u2019s field to have previously lifted the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup, is yet to drop a set at AO 2026.<\/p>\n

And by booking her place in a fourth consecutive AO semifinal, the top seed has reached the last four at a major for the 14th time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese teenagers are testing me in the last couple of rounds,\u201d said Sabalenka, referring to Jovic and 19-year-old Victoria Mboko<\/a>, her fourth-round opponent.<\/p>\n

\u201cIncredible player, it was a tough match \u2014 don\u2019t look at the score, it wasn\u2019t easy at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe played incredible tennis, pushed me to \u2026 a better level. I\u2019m super happy with the win, it was a tough battle.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a dominant display, the top seed struck 31 winners to Jovic\u2019s 12 and won 61 per cent of points on the 29th seed\u2019s second serve.<\/p>\n

Sabalenka said she can\u2019t remember too many matches in which her tennis was as flawless as it was during the second set. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like I have to step in and put even more pressure on her, because I can see that she’s young, she’s hungry, and I could tell during the match that no matter what’s the score, she’s still going to be there,\u201d said Sabalenka.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew that I have to step in and show the level and the class.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it really helped me [to] just go for my shots and \u2026 to trust my game.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0In the pair\u2019s first-ever meeting, Sabalenka immediately exerted her authority by pouncing on Jovic\u2019s second serves to break and quickly consolidated for a 3-0 lead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cNo pain no gain,\u201d Aryna Sabalenka wrote on fitness trainer Jason Stacy\u2019s head before stepping on to Rod…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-441294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441294","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=441294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}