{"id":634408,"date":"2026-04-27T16:28:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T16:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/634408\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T16:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T16:28:08","slug":"sabalenka-overcomes-osaka-in-gripping-battle-to-reach-madrid-open-quarter-finals-tennis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/634408\/","title":{"rendered":"Sabalenka overcomes Osaka in gripping battle to reach Madrid Open quarter-finals | Tennis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aryna Sabalenka, the world No 1, overcame Naomi Osaka 6-7 (1), 6-3, 6-2 in a gripping battle on Monday to reach the Madrid Open quarter-finals. Sabalenka, who has claimed titles at Miami<\/a>, Indian Wells and Brisbane this year, was tested by her Japanese opponent in the fourth-round match, but came back from a set down and a break down.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just trying to take one ball at a time and my team was there for me. They really [pushed] me to keep fighting and I\u2019m really happy I didn\u2019t give up and I was pushing until the very last point,\u201d said Sabalenka.<\/p>\n

The first set between the two four-time grand slam winners was tight, with only one break point forced, by Sabalenka, which Osaka saved to hold for 2-1. Osaka dominated in the tie-break, ripping into a 5-0 lead and took the set when Sabalenka lashed a return wide.<\/p>\n

Sabalenka stepped up a gear in the second set, although Osaka, the world No 15, dug deep to survive three break points and then managed to engineer a break to take a 2-1 lead. However, the Belarusian immediately broke to love and then again in the eighth game, serving out to take the second set.<\/p>\n

Only Elena Rybakina has beaten Sabalenka this year, in the Australian Open final<\/a>, and the 27-year-old dominated the third set, securing breaks in the fifth and seventh games while Osaka could not put pressure on her opponent\u2019s serve.<\/p>\n

Sabalenka sealed her victory serving to love with an ace to reach the last eight, where she will face the American Hailey Baptiste. \u201cShe\u2019s an incredible player, we had a really tight match in Miami, and especially here in Madrid where I think this surface suits her game,\u201d said Sabalenka. \u201cShe played incredible tennis. I feel like I just got lucky in a couple shots in the third set, that\u2019s why it went that fast. I\u2019m happy she brought that fight, I had to fight through to level up my game.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the men\u2019s draw, Casper Ruud eased to a 6-3, 6-1 win over Alejandro Davidovich Fokina to reach the last 16, while Stefanos Tsitsipas defeated Daniel Merida 6-4, 6-2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aryna Sabalenka, the world No 1, overcame Naomi Osaka 6-7 (1), 6-3, 6-2 in a gripping battle on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":{"0":"post-634408","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634408","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=634408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}