MADRID — Aryna Sabalenka started another her Madrid title defense campaign on a strong foot.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a gritty 7-5, 6-3 win over Peyton Stearns, The WTA Driven by Mercedes-Benz World No. 1 advanced to the third round at the Mutua Madrid Open for the fifth time in her career, and picked up her 13th straight win this season. The three-time champion in the Spanish capital will face Jacqueline Cristian in Saturday’s third round.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Though the scoreline indicates a routine win for Sabalenka, it certainly didn’t come without a test from Stearns. The American forced three break points in the opening game, though Sabalenka would ultimately get the hold in three deuces. Then, Stearns went on a tear, winning eight straight points, both holding serve and breaking Sabalenka at love for a one-break heading into the second changeover.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I’m just glad that I got the win,” Sabalenka said. “Maybe not that beautiful, but I felt by the end of the match, I felt much better on court.<\/p>\n
“It wasn’t an easy one. I did my work before coming here, but altitude and these courts and her game, it wasn’t easy.”<\/p>\n
Sabalenka, however, got the break back in a 13-point game — she converted 4-of-12 (33%) of break points in the one hour and 35-minute match.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Stearns’ prime opportunity to open up the first set in her favor came with a break point chance, with Sabalenka down 30-40. With the ball in the vicinity of Stearns\u2019 backhand in the corner, naturally a backhand return would\u2019ve been safe, but Stearns took a gamble to force the return shot to her more dominant forehand, which led to an unforced error.<\/p>\n
The forehand unforced error foreshadowed what came in the final game of the set, when Stearns had two forehand unforced errors into the center of the net. That created a double break and double set point chance, which Sabalenka timely capitalized on with a powerful forehand winner on Stearns\u2019 second serve \u2014 Sabalenka won 58% of Stearns\u2019 second-serve points.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sabalenka is now 22-0 this season when taking the first set, and the only time she’s lost the first set, was against Elena Rybakina at both Indian Wells and the Australian Open.<\/p>\n
The second set followed suit with the first, with each trading breaks to be level at 2-2, and then each holding until Stearns\u2019 service game with Sabalenka up 4-3. Up 40-15, this time it would be Sabalenka’s backhand return on the second serve kick that guaranteed Sabalenka a chance to serve for the match.<\/p>\n
Stearns fought til the very end, creating two more break points in the final game, but Sabalenka came in the clutch by saving them both to move on in Madrid.<\/p>\n
“Today, I came in like it’s a fresh start for me, and it wasn’t maybe that smooth and movement maybe wasn’t that good, I’m happy I got a win, and I’ll just do some extra stuff tomorrow,” Sabalenka said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MADRID — Aryna Sabalenka started another her Madrid title defense campaign on a strong foot.\u00a0\u00a0 In a gritty…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428,1959],"class_list":{"0":"post-601951","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-text"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601951","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=601951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}