MELBOURNE, Australia — It wasn’t usually fairly, however two-time defending Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka prolonged a couple of spectacular streaks on Friday whereas turning into one of many first gamers to advance to the fourth spherical of the 12 months’s opening Grand Slam event.
In a tougher-than-expected match, Sabalenka beat Clara Tauson 7-6 (5), 6-4 in a poor early serving show by each gamers to open the sixth day of play on Rod Laver Enviornment. It was Sabalenka’s eighth match victory in a row to begin the season after profitable the Brisbane Worldwide 10 days in the past, and her seventeenth win in a row at Melbourne Park.
As nicely, it has been practically three years — the 2022 French Open — for the reason that top-ranked Sabalenka did not advance previous the third spherical of a Grand Slam event by which she performed.
Each gamers misplaced their first three service video games, and it turned seven service breaks in a row when Sabalenka misplaced her fourth service recreation at love. After Tauson fired an unreturnable backhand crosscourt to arrange break level, Sabalenka managed a wry smile.
Tauson lastly held a service recreation to guide 5-3, and Sabalenka additionally gained her service recreation to remain within the first set. However no shock — the Danish participant misplaced her service whereas serving for the primary set to depart it at 5-5, ultimately going to a tiebreaker that Sabalenka gained regardless of main 4-1, taking the opening set in 63 minutes.
“The situations are actually robust to serve, heavy situations,” Sabalenka stated. “It was actually necessary to get all of these breaks again. It might have gone both method.”
Sabalenka broke Tauson’s serve within the third recreation of the second set, and from there the chances had been in Sabalenka’s favor — when Sabalenka has an early break in a set, she wins it 88% of the time. However she nonetheless wanted a break after seven deuces within the ninth recreation to place her in management earlier than she served out the match — after saving two break factors within the ultimate recreation.
“That was an amazing battle, she performed unbelievable tennis,” Sabalenka stated. “I’m tremendous pleased I used to be in a position to push myself. I instructed myself, ‘Properly, lady, you’re robust.’ So many occasions I assumed I used to be executed.”
In one other early match Friday, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova beat Laura Siegemund 6-1, 6-2 to additionally advance to the fourth spherical. Siegemund beat Olympic gold medalist Zheng Qinwen within the second spherical.
Additionally advancing Friday was 18th-seeded Donna Vekic, who beat Twelfth-seeded Diana Shnaider 7-6 (4), 6-7 (3), 7-5.