{"id":511330,"date":"2026-07-05T20:21:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T20:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/511330\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T20:21:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T20:21:08","slug":"osakas-inspired-win-leaves-sabalenka-wanting-to-get-drunk-and-forget-wimbledon-wimbledon-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/511330\/","title":{"rendered":"Osaka\u2019s inspired win leaves Sabalenka wanting \u2018to get drunk and forget\u2019 Wimbledon | Wimbledon 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Women\u2019s top seed Aryna Sabalenka<\/a> was knocked out in the fourth round of Wimbledon by an inspired Naomi Osaka on \u2060Sunday with the Japanese player blazing to a 6-2 7-6 (2) win on Centre Court.<\/p>\n

With eight grand slam titles between them, the blockbuster duel topped the day seven bill but it \u2060ended up lacking the expected \u2060fireworks as 14th \u200bseed Osaka dominated. Sabalenka was left screaming in frustration during a 32-minute opening set as her power game misfired.<\/p>\n

The second set was more like the contest the packed crowd had \u2060expected but a serene Osaka stayed cool to snap Sabalenka\u2019s streak of 21 unbeaten tiebreaks in grand slams and claim her biggest win since returning to the Tour in 2024 following the birth \u2060of daughter Shai.<\/p>\n

After losing match point, Sabalenka took out her anger on a ball, blasting it way out of the stadium. Osaka\u2019s \u200bwin not only took her into the quarter-finals of Wimbledon<\/a> \u200cfor the first time, it \u200calso blew the draw wide open with the top three seeds all out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it was a really fun match. I\u2019m \u200creally grateful for this. Even if I lost, I would still think it was a great match,\u201d Osaka said after her first victory on Centre Court. \u201cI mean it\u2019s been a long time since I\u2019ve had so much fun on the court. To do it here, it really means a lot. I lost to her like three times in a row, so that really sucked. So I wanted to turn it over.\u201c<\/p>\n

After third-round defeats for defending champion Iga Swiatek and second \u200cseed Elena Rybakina on Saturday, the door had finally swung wide open for Sabalenka after three successive semi-final runs, but she was well below her best.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow I want to go and get drunk \u200band forget about tennis,\u201d the 28-year-old said after arriving at her press conference minutes after walking off court. Both players are better known as hardcourt specialists, with four grand slams apiece on that surface.<\/p>\n

Born seven months apart, their careers have taken very different trajectories with Osaka winning all of her four slams before the slightly younger Sabalenka captured her first.<\/p>\n

Aryna Sabalenka screams in frustration during her fourth-round defeat by Naomi Osaka. Photograph: Andrew Couldridge\/Reuters<\/p>\n

But they finally met head-on at a slam \u2060for the first time since their first meeting eight years ago when Osaka beat Sabalenka \u200bon her way to the US Open \u200btitle.<\/p>\n

Osaka has once again caused a buzz \u200bwith her Japanese-inspired walk-on outfits but it is her tennis that is now beginning to really \u200bturn heads. She was first to \u200cthe punch from the \u200bstart on Sunday, the quality \u200bof her service returns continually catching Sabalenka off balance as she broke twice to take the first set.<\/p>\n

Sabalenka tried everything to fire herself up, banging her racket against her head early in the second, but despite keeping pace she rarely looked in control. Osaka never flinched and sped through the tiebreak to set up a quarter-final with Czech 10th seed Karolina Muchova.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Women\u2019s top seed Aryna Sabalenka was knocked out in the fourth round of Wimbledon by an inspired Naomi…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":511331,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-511330","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\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}