Aryna Sabalenka believes ‘staying calm’ will be a key factor in her upcoming semi-final clash with Poland’s Magda Linette at the Australian Open.
The fifth seed sealed her place in the last four of the Grand Slam on Wednesday after ousting Donna Vekic 6-2, 6-3, in a match that was closer than the score suggest. 10 out of the 17 games played went to deuce with Sabalenka having to save 12 out of 14 break points she faced. Overall, she produced a total of 38 winners and nine aces.
“I’m super happy with the win today. It was a tough match. She played great tennis.” The world No.5 said afterwards.
“There were a lot of tough moments. I just kept saying, like, just stay in the game, fight for it, don’t give her easy points, make her work for it.”
Sabalenka is only the sixth woman in the Open Era to have won her first four Grand Slam quarter-finals played. The last player to do so before her was Naomi Osaka. Overall, she has dropped just 26 games en route to the last four in Melbourne Park which is fewer games than she dropped on all three of her other runs to Grand Slam semi-finals.
Hoping to capitalise on her previous experience in the next round, the Belarussian says it is just as important that she stays focused mentally, as well as maintaining her powerful shot-making. She is yet to play in a Grand Slam final.
“I feel a little bit different. I think that I lost those three semifinals just because I wasn’t really calm on court,” she said, “I was overdoing things. I really wanted to get this slam. I was rushing a lot. I was nervous a lot. Screaming, doing all this stuff.”
“Right now I’m a little bit more calm on court. I think that this is the only thing that was missing in my game. If I can keep staying that focus and that calm on court, I can get through it.”
In her previous Grand Slam semi-finals, Sabalenka lost to Karolina Pliskova at Wimbledon in 2021, Lelylah Fernandez at the 2021 US Open and Iga Swiatek at the 2022 US Open.
At this year’s Australian Open, Sabalenka will next play Linette who is enjoying a fairytale run at the age of 30. The Polish world No.45 defeated an error-stricken Pliskova 6-3, 7-5, in just under 90 minutes. Pliskova hit seven double faults and 36 unforced errors in the match. Before this year, Linette had never gone beyond the third round of a major and is yet to crack the world’s top 30.
“It’s so emotional I can’t really believe it,” she said after her match.
“It’s really a dream come true. We keep going though.
“I don’t want to get too excited because I’m still in the tournament but I’m super grateful and happy.
“All my life I’ve been taking mistakes and losses very personally so disconnecting those two things, Magda the tennis player and Magda the person, was really difficult because I felt a lot of times the mistakes are defining me so my coaches and me did a really great job.
“I’m really thankful to them because they’ve had to put up with a lot of crap!”
The two players have clashed twice before on the Tour with Sabalenka winning both of those matches in straight sets. However, the last time they played against each other was at the Tokyo Olympics and since then Linette has elevated her game. The question is will it be enough to stop her opponent?
“My last encounter wasn’t the best at the Olympics, so I think I have a really big room there because it obviously can’t be any worse than the last one,” Linette said.
“I will just try what I’m doing this whole week. I’m being very consistent, returning really well, and keeping my serves. I think she will be, you know, just a little bit more consistent version of being aggressive on every single shot. I will just need to serve really well again.”
Sabalenka is currently on a nine-match winning streak and is yet to drop a set in 2023.
