Grand Slam title<\/a> game of her career, brought all her experience to bear as she slammed the door on the American\u2019s dream of a maiden Grand Slam.<\/p>\n\u201cLosing in two finals in a row is great but it\u2019s also super hard,\u201d Anisimova said. \u201cI think I didn\u2019t fight hard enough for my dreams today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sabalenka clinched the win after once again demonstrating her incredible prowess in tiebreaks \u2013 winning her 19th consecutive breaker 7-3 to complete victory in one hour and 34 minutes.<\/p>\n
Anisimova, meanwhile, was left ruing her inability to make the most of break points at key moments, in sharp contrast to Sabalenka, who converted five of her six break-point chances.<\/p>\n
That imbalance was on display early in the first set, when Anisimova failed to convert three break-point openings as Sabalenka took a 2-0 lead.<\/p>\n
Yet Anisimova hit back in the third game, lasering a backhand winner into the corner to earn break point, before unfurling a rasping forehand winner to break back, then holding for 2-2.<\/p>\n
With the momentum behind her and her ground strokes forcing Sabalenka around the court, Anisimova then broke again for a 3-2 lead.<\/p>\n
But that was the catalyst for Sabalenka to raise her game and she broke to love before holding to edge back in front.<\/p>\n
Anisimova\u2019s faltering serve again betrayed her in the eighth game, the eighth seed double-faulting twice in quick succession to hand Sabalenka two break points at 15-40.<\/p>\n
Sabalenka needed no further encouragement and she duly converted, before holding to take the first set.<\/p>\n
She punished another wayward service game from Anisimova early in the second set and looked in complete control at 3-1.<\/p>\n
Yet Anisimova wasn\u2019t quite finished, and she held confidently before breaking back to love to level it at 3-3.<\/p>\n
The fightback was short-lived however, and when Anisimova thumped a wide-open forehand long to gift Sabalenka a 15-40 lead, the Belarusian once again seized her chance for a break.<\/p>\n
Sabalenka held for 5-3 and was soon serving for the match at 5-4. Yet she allowed Anisimova off the hook after ploughing a smash into the net.<\/p>\n
Instead of giving her match point, Anisimova had break point, which she took to give her a lifeline.<\/p>\n
But in the tiebreak, Sabalenka reasserted her control and she sprinted into a 6-1 lead before closing out the victory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anisimova had won six of nine previous encounters against Sabalenka, a run which included a victory in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[10804,8239,10805,10801,2046,10812,10808,10810,10803,10806,3232,10813,78,117,111,139,4061,69,5493,10807,1041,10802,1973,10814,213,10811,10809,3217,2563,61,3040,377,2173],"class_list":["post-8368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-amanda","tag-american","tag-anisimova","tag-aryna","tag-career","tag-clinch","tag-crown","tag-defeating","tag-defeats","tag-defend","tag-fourth","tag-grand","tag-in","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-number","tag-nz","tag-open","tag-overpowered","tag-rival","tag-sabalenka","tag-sets","tag-slam","tag-sports","tag-straight","tag-sunday","tag-tennis","tag-title","tag-to","tag-us","tag-world","tag-york"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8368","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=8368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}