{"id":502446,"date":"2026-03-04T03:34:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T03:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/502446\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T03:34:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T03:34:12","slug":"three-first-round-matches-to-watch-in-tennis-paradise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/502446\/","title":{"rendered":"Three first round matches to watch in Tennis Paradise"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Peyton Stearns vs Solana Sierra<\/p>\n<p>Peyton Stearns played one of the <a class=\"TextLinkButton_underline__PMbvH TextLinkButton_button__6iB_U RichText_inlineLink__ltbLd\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/BNPPARIBASOPEN\/status\/1884396294384366056\" rel=\"nofollow\">most memorable matches<\/a> in recent history in Tennis Paradise.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In 2024, Stearns and her heavy forehand stretched No. 2 seed <a class=\"TextLinkButton_underline__PMbvH TextLinkButton_button__6iB_U RichText_inlineLink__ltbLd\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/bnpparibasopen.com\/players\/detail\/aryna-sabalenka\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Aryna Sabalenka<\/a> to a final set tiebreak in nearly three hours in the second round.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Stearns had four match points on her own serve at 5-4 in the third set and was broken again at 6-5, before seeing Sabalenka claim the tiebreak 8-6.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt the net she said, \u2018I had you,\u2019 and she\u2019s right,\u201d Sabalenka memorably said afterwards.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Stearns entered that edition after a first-round loss in Austin. But in 2026, she comes in as the reigning champion in Austin.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Stearns won her second career title over the weekend when she beat Taylor Townsend.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It added to her fond memories of playing in Texas \u2014 Stearns was a three-time All American at the University of Texas.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Stearns, up to 48th in the rankings, has never faced the 65th-ranked Solana Sierra from Argentina.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Sierra has lost her last three matches \u2014 but made the fourth round at Wimbledon last year as a lucky loser.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Peyton Stearns vs Solana Sierra Peyton Stearns played one of the most memorable matches in recent history in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-502446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}