The Australian Open is already in sight of its end, although there is still a lot of history to be written. The two new protagonists who will seek to take the decisive leap towards the dreamed-of trophy are Aryna Sabalenka (5th in the WTA rankings) and Magda Linette (45th).
Being the best performance of both, where they managed to get into the top four of the oceanic contest for the first time, their hunger for glory does not leave them satisfied and they will go in search of the final match. While the 24-year-old Belarusian prevailed 6-3, 6-2 against the Croatian Donna Vekic (64th), the polish did the same in front of the czech Karolina Pliskova (31ª) by 6-3 and 7-5.
Sabalenka she became the sixth player of the Open Era to win her first four Grand Slam quarterfinal matches (Wimbledon 2021, US Open 2021, 2022, the former). In this way, he joins the exclusive list made up of Ann Jones, Billie Jean King, Chris Evert, Elena Dementieva y Naomi Osaka.
And it is that his present says it all. 2023 could not have started in the best way for the 24-year-old, who already has won nine games in a row, with the Adelaide WTA in his pocket, without dropping a single set and only six games away from beating his best mark achieved between the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021. In addition, she has not known defeat on Australian soil since January 24, 2022 in the round of 16 of the AO when she fell in three sets against Kaia Kanepi (29th).
However, he will have the best version of Linette. At 30 years old, The Pole became the third player from her country to reach the semifinals of the Australian Open, after what was done by Iga Swiatek (1st) in 2022 and by Agnieszka Radwanska in 2014 and 2016. In addition, she has the possibility of being the first tennis player from her region, both a woman and a man, to reach the decisive stage of this contest.
As if that were not enough, he managed to break the spell of the third rounds in Majors competitions. Six were the times she was defeated in this instance, until this contest.
Although his next rival is from a great hierarchy as is Sabalenkawith whom he has a negative history of 0-2 (WTA of Tianjin ´18 and Olympic Games ´21), this week his tennis did not falter against high-level rivals: Triumphs against Anett Kontaveit (19th), Ekaterina Alexandrova (18th), Caroline Garcia (4th) and Karolina Pliskova (former 1st and current 31st).
