Google News Australian Open: Aryna Sabalenka in the final, the match point against Magda Linette
by LORENZO CIOTTI
Aryna Sabalenka qualified for the final at the Australian Open 2023. The Belarusian tennis player, in line with a practically perfect start to the season, reaches the first final in a Grand Slam tournament. Against tournament revelation Magda Linette, the Belarusian's problems essentially last a set.
She recovers a break from disadvantage, keeps the percentage of points with the first ball very high and even if she does not settle the decisive shoulder before the jeudecif she breaks away from parity with a mega-partial of 6-0 and then spreads in the second set .
The 7-6(1) 6-2 is emblematic. Record numbers for the Belarusian, who won the ten matches she played during the season, all in two sets, and who also guaranteed second place in the ranking on the eve of the most important match of her career.
In the final here is the Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina. After a few months of adjustment, she shines again. Fresh off her defeat of world super number one Iga Swiatek and Jelena Ostapenko in the quarterfinals, the Kazakh tennis player dispatches two-time tournament champion Victoria Azarenka with a remarkably orderly performance.
Aryna Sabalenka in the final, the match point against Magda Linette
She survives the first set tie break, but above all takes control of the situation in the second. With the joke available and above all in reply, where with her backhand she essentially traces a furrow within the prolonged exchanges.
Called to close on 5-2, she trembles, but at the second opportunity she makes no mistake and seals her success on 7-6 (5) 6-3. Eleventh career final in the major circuit for the champion of the Championships, who among other things also enters the top ten players in the world for the first time.
A victory in the final, in addition to rounding off the bulletin board, would also allow her to climb another position and get behind Daria Kasatkina in position number nine. With the Wimbledon points, in parallel, she too could have aspired to the third box in the ranking.
Sabalenka among other things between 2019 and 2021 also won all three of the previous ones against Rybakina. Here is the match point of the match between Sabalenka and Linette: