“Hi,” she said, greeting a waiting mascot with a warm smile and a friendly wave. “How are you? Excited?”

Taking Kalinskaya’s outstretched hand, the beaming little girl replied that she was indeed excited: her mum and dad were going to see her on television. It was a charming exchange and, behind them, a boy assigned the task of walking on with Iga Swiatek looked on enviously.

It was not that the Polish world No 1 was unfriendly: she said hello, shook the child’s hand. But Swiatek was in match mode – headphones on, attending to her hydration, preparing her walk-on music. On familiar ground – Swiatek was playing her 13th WTA 1000 semi-final, Kalinskaya her first – the top seed was simply taking care of business.

Those moments were nonetheless indicative of the emotional temperature of an evening that would culminate with Kalinskaya, a 25-year-old qualifier ranked 40th in the world, handing Swiatek her first straight-sets defeat in almost a year. Kalinskaya was still smiling and chatting to her young charge as the pair made their way on to court, and nothing that happened in the extraordinary one hour and 41 minutes that followed seemed to alter the unflappable Russian’s mood. In contrast, Swiatek, focused and business-like from the outset, would become increasingly fraught and agitated. 

After the disappointment of an early exit to Linda Noskova at the Australian Open, Swiatek has bounced back strongly over the Middle East swing. But for once, the Pole struggled to bear the weight of expectation lightly; struggled to keep her foot on the accelerator after establishing an early lead; struggled to maintain the steely composure that had carried her to seven straight victories. It resulted in a 6-4, 6-4 defeat, just the second Swiatek has suffered in 27 matches dating back to last October.

Gunning for a second straight WTA 1000 title that, following last week’s triumph at the Qatar Open, would have made her the first player to win the Gulf double since Justine Henin in 2007, Swiatek began the match in dominant form. Dictating from the baseline and forcing the play at the net as she repeatedly drew Kalinskaya wide on the backhand, forcing the qualifier to take one hand off the racket and thereby nullifying one of her chief weapons, the Pole established a 4-2 lead. But the 22-year-old found it increasingly difficult to maintain a balance between power and consistency. As her errors slowly mounted, so too did her irritation.

“I felt like I didn’t have power any more to give even more, which doesn’t happen often,” said Swiatek, who complained of a lack of “energy and intensity”. 

“I just felt out of control a little bit because of that, because usually when I tell myself what to do I can improve my game, but today I was so out of power and tired that I just couldn’t.”

Early in the second set, that lack of control manifested itself in uncharacteristic fashion. Broken in the opening game, Swiatek’s deepening frustration was evident as Kalinskaya served to consolidate her advantage. She looked imploringly to her team after prodding a backhand long, then gestured to them in exasperation after slamming a mighty forehand winner. Nothing seemed to please her – least of all the missed return that followed, an error to which she responded by slamming her racket into the ground in frustration, breaking the frame and receiving a code violation for her troubles.

Through it all, her opponent remained serene. As Swiatek bounded out of her chair at the next changeover, Kalinskaya took her time, quietly composing herself before returning to the fray with a relaxed smile. She seemed to be genuinely enjoying herself – and why not? Having defeated a pair of top-10 players in Jelena Ostapenko and Coco Gauff in the previous two rounds, she had little to lose. Swiatek, meanwhile, had spent much of the previous 24 hours insisting that the outcome of a tournament at which she was the only seeded player remaining was not preordained. 

“In the beginning of the second set I didn’t think too much,” said Kalinskaya. “I just had to play point by point. She’s a great player, so I had to stay calm and just follow the plan that I had in my mind. I had to stay aggressive and keep moving her.”

She succeeded admirably in those aims, coolly absorbing the disappointment of being denied two match points at 5-2 amid a late surge of aggression from Swiatek, then fending off two break points as she again served for victory two games later. On her first match point, Kalinskaya moved forward behind a thumping crosscourt forehand before slamming away a drive volley. Already projected to achieve a new career-high ranking of 24th on Monday, Kalinskaya will break into the top 20 if she can repeat her Australian Open victory over Italy’s Jasmine Paolini in Saturday’s final. 

In the first semi-final, Paolini resisted another extraordinary comeback by Sorana Cirstea to reach her fifth career final 6-2, 7-6 (8-6). Cirstea fought back from a set and 5-1 down to defeat Marketa Vondrousova in the quarter-finals, and threatened to repeat that feat as she set about cancelling out a 5-2 second-set deficit. But Paolini clung on gamely, warding off six set points to join Kalinskaya in reaching a first WTA 1000 final.

“I played already with her two times, she’s playing really well when she’s little bit down in the score,” said Paolini. “She’s trying to hit more winners, to play faster.”

At least she will be well prepared for the final. Nobody at this tournament has played faster than Kalinskaya, whose fearless ball-striking and ability to inject sudden changes of pace has so proved irresistible. Paolini, denied a first grand slam quarter-final by Kalinskaya at the Australian Open, is all too aware of the challenge that awaits.

“If you want to beat her, you have to play deep and try to do not too many mistakes, but also try to hit winners, to hit the ball, to push her away from the court because if not, she’s going to move you,” said the Italian.

Swiatek can attest to the truth of that. It promises to be a fascinating final.

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“Not really,” replied the 24-year-old. “It’s too early to say if it’s a big three, big four. I think some years should pass and we all need to continue playing well.”

Years? A cynic might counter that it has taken less than a week to disprove the notion. 

The Dubai Tennis Championships were billed as the first collision of the world’s top four since the Australian Open; instead, as the business end of the tournament heaves into view, Swiatek is the only seeded player left standing. The Polish top seed defeated Qinwen Zheng 6-3, 6-2 to reach the semi-finals, where she will be the lone standard bearer for the world’s top 20 and a red-hot favourite to add a second straight WTA 1000 title to last week’s triumph in Doha. Not that the 22-year-old is not getting carried away. 

“I’m not thinking about winning the title, because I try to do everything step by step,” said Swiatek in her on-court interview. “All these players that are playing this tournament are really great, any of us can win. I try just to stay humble and focused on only the next step, and if by any chance I’m going to win the tournament, it’s going to be just an effect. No point in overanalysing that.” 

Be that as it may, not even Swiatek could deny her prospects looked brighter by the end of a day that, after starting with three of the four reigning grand slam champions in contention, ended in utter carnage.

The exodus was led by Marketa Vondrousova, the Czech seventh seed, who saw six match points come and go as she fell victim to an extraordinary fightback from Sorana Cirstea of Romania. It has been a difficult start to the season for Vondrousova, who struggled with sickness in Australia and arrived in Dubai short of match practice. But for an hour or so, the 24-year-old looked every inch the player who stormed to the Wimbledon title last summer. Mixing heavy groundstrokes with short angles, drop shots and lobs, Vondrousova opened up a 6-2, 5-1 lead. 

The emphatic nature of that scoreline was misleading, however. Cirstea had competed fiercely throughout, her power and athletic defensive play keeping the points close even as her unforced errors stacked up. But with defeat seemingly inevitable, the 33-year-old resolved to go down swinging; if she couldn’t win, the least she could do was entertain the fans who continued to chant her name in loud, chopped syllables. Cirstea saved two match points with aces, another with a winning volley, and forced the play on three others to lay the foundations for what she described as “the biggest comeback of my career”.

“I looked over at the clock and I saw it was only one hour of play,” said Cirstea after completing an improbable 2-6, 7-6 (7-1), 6-2 victory. “I was having such great support. I said, ‘OK, let’s try to win one more game for the public, make it a little bit longer.’ 

“I think that thing took the pressure away from me. I started to find my game.”

By the time Cirstea was done, another Wimbledon champion had exited the tournament without striking a ball after Rybakina withdrew with a gastrointestinal problem. 

“Unfortunately, I was not feeling well overnight,” announced the fourth-seeded Kazakhstani. “Since I am not feeling 100% ready to compete, I have decided to pull out from my quarter-final match.”

Rybakina’s withdrawal means the event is guaranteed at least one unseeded finalist, with Jasmine Paolini of Italy advancing to face Cirstea in what will be the 28-year-old’s first semi-final appearance at this level. Paolini, ranked four places below the Romanian at No 26, has won both their previous meetings.

Vondrousova was later followed out of the tournament by Coco Gauff, the third seed and US Open champion, who was undone by a free-hitting display from Anna Kalinskaya, a Russian qualifier ranked 40th in the world. Kalinskaya, who defeated Jelena Ostapenko in the previous round, prevailed 2-6, 6-4, 6-2 to claim her second victory over a grand slam champion in as many days. The Russian, a straight-sets winner over defied an upper back injury to .

In her first appearance on the tournament’s main court, it took time for Kalinskaya to find her range. A brilliant ball-striker who favours high-risk, high-reward tennis, the 25-year-old was unable to find the right balance in the opening set, committing 11 unforced errors and winning barely a quarter of her second-serve points. She was not helped by an upper back injury that required a medical timeout and briefly seemed serious enough to raise doubts about whether she would continue.

Once she settled, though, Kalinskaya was irresistible, her self-belief evident as she controlled the tempo of the baseline exchanges, drilling her backhand with regal authority in the face of Gauff’s dogged retrieving.

“I started a little bit not so confident,” said Kalinskaya, a surprise quarter-finalist at last month’s Australian Open. “I was getting used to the surface. I didn’t get the chance to play on centre court, I felt the speed of the bounce was a bit different. I couldn’t find my timing.  

“In the second set, I calmed down a little bit more and I played point by point till the end of the match. I could feel the tension till the last point. She kept bringing so many balls back, so I had to stay really patient and decide which ball to go and finish the point.”

Having struggled against Karolina Pliskova in the previous round, where she became embroiled in a protracted dispute with French chair umpire Pierre Bacchi, Gauff’s second defeat in four matches concluded a forgettable Middle East swing for the American world No 3. 

With Sabalenka beaten by Donna Vekic in her opening match on Tuesday, the big four becomes a big one. Swiatek now has seven consecutive straight-set wins under her belt and, unlike her peers, appears to have been largely untroubled by the transition from Doha to Dubai. Her caution is understandable, particularly given the power at Kalinskaya’s disposal, but it is hard not to like the Pole’s chances.

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“It’s a new history, a new tournament,” said Swiatek.

The devastating manner in which the 22-year-old opened her campaign against Sorana Cirstea belied that cautious appraisal, however; in the event it was more a case of same old, same old.

This was Swiatek at her devastating best, striking the ball with power and authority in the baseline exchanges, drilling returns to all corners of the court, and so commanding on serve that she did not face a break point throughout. Dragged from pillar to post, Cirstea competed gamely, but was powerless to avert a 6-1, 6-1 defeat.

It was quite a way for Swiatek to mark the start of her 90th week at the top of the world rankings, a milestone only nine other women have reached since the system was introduced in 1975. The Pole has also now appeared in 37 WTA 1000 matches as world No 1, a record bettered only by Serena Williams. At 22 years old, it is a formidable body of work. 

“I forget about it,” said Swiatek, who will face Russian opposition in the next round in the form of either Erika Andreeva or Ekaterina Alexandrova, the 14th seed. 

“Now I have actually people in my team reminding me of what I achieved, because I’m so focused on what’s next. I sometimes forget, but it’s pretty crazy and hard to understand, because I wasn’t really thinking when I was younger that it was going to be possible for me.”

Swiatek’s imperious start was in stark contrast to that of fellow grand slam champion Emma Raducanu, who committed 48 unforced errors against Ukraine’s Anhelina Kalinina as she fell to a 6-0, 7-6 (8-6) defeat. After a poor start, Raducanu fought hard to find a way back into the match, retrieving an early break in the second set before reeling off a sequence of spectacular winners as she staved off five break points in the seventh game. 

The 20-year-old saved two match points to force a tiebreak, but was unable to convert a set point at 6-5 in the ensuing tiebreak.  

“I think I was struggling with everything, serve, return, forehand, backhand,” Raducanu told Sky Sports. “To be honest, I felt like I never really got into it.

“When the tennis isn’t there, you have to at least try to fight, and I think I did that in the second set.”

There was better news for another former US Open champion as Naomi Osaka defeated Caroline Garcia, the 15th seed, to gain a measure of vengeance for her first-round defeat to the Frenchwoman at last month’s Australian Open. Osaka won five straight games from 3-5 down in the opening set to create the platform for a 7-5, 6-4 victory.

“I’m definitely really happy,” said Osaka. “She’s beaten me once this year already, so I was really glad that I was able to learn from it.”

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One such figure is Sorana Cirstea, who gets our nod as the most improved player of 2023 after compiling her finest season since she reached the 2009 French Open quarter-finals as a raw 19-year-old. Fourteen years on, the Romanian enjoyed her best grand slam run since by reaching the same stage at the US Open. She also demonstrated her versatility – and her competitive steel – by recovering from championship point down to win a third career title on the clay courts of Reus. In terms of results, though, it was Cirstea’s success over the sunshine swing that underpinned her season – and highlighted the progress she has made in several key areas.

After an indifferent start to the year, Cirstea entered spring languishing at No 83 in the rankings. At risk of dropping out of the top 100 for the first time in four years, she rebounded magnificently, claiming a last-eight berth in Indian Wells before making her first WTA 1000 semi-final in a decade at the Miami Open.

Notable in themselves, those results were all the more impressive for the calibre of the opponents she went through. Playing bold and brilliant tennis, Cirstea earned a pair of victories over Caroline Garcia, the world No 4 and reigning WTA Finals champion, as well as defeating soon-to-be Wimbledon winner Marketa Vondrousova and soon-to-be French Open finalist Karolina Muchova. Cirstea also claimed a landmark first singles success against second-ranked Aryna Sabalenka, the finest win of her career by ranking, to secure a swift return to the top 50.

A fine athlete with a heavy baseline game and a penetrating serve, Cirstea has always possessed the tools to unsettle the world’s best. Belief in the big moments has proved more elusive, however, and her results on US hard courts this year are testament to the mental and tactical improvements she has made in the 15 months since hiring Thomas Johansson, a former Australian Open champion and world No 7, as her coach.

“He made me smarter on the court,” Cirstea said in Indian Wells. “My shots were always there, but sometimes I couldn’t see certain things.”

Her vision is now clearer, both tactically and temperamentally. Supported by Johansson and a relentless work ethic, Cirstea has calmed her occasionally fiery temperament and learned to read the unfolding patterns of a match more sharply and shrewdly. In her best moments, the Romanian has been able not only to trust her game, but also to apply her heavy artillery with greater poise and purpose.

“She’s very talented and she has weapons all over the place,” says Johansson. “Her problem has not been the tennis. It’s been the mental side of the game.”

It remains a work in progress, but there are clear signs that, age notwithstanding, Cirstea is starting to marshal her gifts more consistently. That was never more apparent than at the US Open, where her progress to the last eight was punctuated by impressive wins over Elena Rybakina and Belinda Bencic. Finally, she appears to be on a trajectory that reflects her talent; the challenge now, as a poor post-New York phase emphasised, will be to sustain her level week-in, week-out.

“I think I have always been a good player. I have always been a dangerous player. I have always had a big game, but sometimes I lacked a bit of consistency,” Cirstea reflected in Miami. “I would have, let’s say, three, four months when I was playing really well, and then drop the level and then come back again.

“In these 10 years [since reaching the 2013 Canadian Open final, her best previous run at WTA 1000 level] I feel like I have had great results as well, and periods where I was playing very, very well. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to keep that level the whole year.

“It’s always a puzzle, and now all the pieces are starting to come together.”

Cirstea was not among the official WTA award nominees, and it might be argued that the pattern of her season – a poor start followed by a spring zenith, a somewhat underwhelming summer followed by a brilliant surge at Flushing Meadows, and then another dip – merely confirmed her reputation as a streaky player who too rarely achieves the results of which she is capable. Naysayers might also object that her year-end ranking of 25th, one place lower than 2022, points more to stagnation than development.

Zheng Qinwen, who won the WTA award for the most improved player of 2023, matched Cirstea’s run at the US Open, won two titles to the Romanian’s one, and finished the year strongly, winning 12 of her last 15 matches to end the year ranked 15th. Yet Cirstea claimed four top-five wins to Zheng’s one, and had a superior record at WTA 1000 level. And while Zheng’s improvement might be expected – lest we forget, she was named newcomer of the year last season – Cirstea is getting better at a more advanced stage in her career, which is always a tougher proposition.

She may have finished the season one place lower in the rankings than last year, but Cirstea is still only four spots off her career high, and became the Romanian No 1 for the first time this year. At 33, her best years may yet be ahead.

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Earlier this month in Indian Wells, where Rybakina won her first WTA 1000 title, she achieved the rare distinction of beating the top two in consecutive rounds, dismissing Iga Swiatek in the semi-finals before avenging her defeat to Aryna Sabalenka in January’s Australian Open final. On Thursday night, the Kazakh completed a clean sweep of victories over the top three, defeating Jessica Pegula 7-6 (7-3), 6-4 to reach the final of the Miami Open for the first time. 

Rybakina, who has now won 13 straight matches, stands on the brink of becoming only the fifth woman to complete the “sunshine double” of Indian Wells and Miami, a feat that would put her in illustrious company. Since Indian Wells became part of the women’s tour in 1989, only Steffi Graf, Kim Clijsters, Victoria Azarenka and Iga Swiatek have won both titles in the same year. All are former No 1s and multiple grand slam champions. 

If she is to join them, Rybakina will first need to find a way past another future Hall of Famer in Petra Kvitova, who ended Sorana Cirstea’s brilliant sunshine stretch with a 7-5, 6-4 victory on Friday. Kvitova, who recovered from 5-2 down in the opening set, denying the Romanian two set points with a pair of big forehands, was a straight-sets winner over Rybakina when the pair last met, three months ago in Adelaide. Rybakina, who won their only other meeting, in Ostrava last year, knows it won’t be easy.

“I played against Petra in the beginning of the year and she played really well, but it was much faster courts there,” said Rybakina. 

“I think it’s going to be different [when] I play against her again, but for sure it’s a lot physically, because here the courts are quite slow, especially after rain. When it’s that humid, it’s not easy.”  

Having racked up 11 wins in 20 days, the auspices are nonetheless encouraging for Rybakina. She has dealt well with the fatigue that afflicted her following the quick turnaround from Indian Wells, and will face Kvitova well rested after completing her rain-interrupted semi-final a day earlier than the 32-year-old Czech, who has been playing catch-up ever since her midweek meeting with Russia’s Ekaterina Alexandrova was rained off. 

Rybakina has rarely been at her best tennis in Miami, but she has shown admirable tenacity and resourcefulness. She came through a pair of tough three-setters in the early rounds, battling past Anna Kalinskaya before saving a match point against Paula Badosa, and while her trademark consistency on serve has proved elusive at times, her ace count has been in double figures in every round. The last player to hit 10 or more aces across five straight matches at the same event was Serena Williams at Wimbledon in 2016. Even more impressive, though, has been Rybakina’s ablity to come up with those big serves at the moment of greatest need. 

“In these important moments like 30-30, 30-40 or something like this, I was serving [an] ace,” said Rybakina after her quarter-final win over Italy’s Martina Trevisan. “So I think it’s just important to find these moments and to push, and for now [I’m] doing well even being not super fresh.” 

Timely aggression was certainly a key theme against Pegula, who broke three times in the opening set and twice served for it. On each occasion, Rybakina stuck to her guns, commanding the rallies with her forehand and making her way into the net whenever the opportunity arose. It was a similar story in the second set, where the Kazakh trailed 4-2 before reeling off four straight games.

“I started [to become] a bit more aggressive, because I knew that if it’s going to go to the third set, it’s going to be much more difficult,” said Rybakina. “So I maybe risked a bit more, even in the end of the second set.”

It is a philosophy Kvitova shares. The Czech looked to be in a deep hole after hooking a backhand wide in the sixth game to go a break down against Cirstea. High on confidence after the brilliant win over Sabalenka that propelled her to her first WTA 1000 semi-final for a decade, Cirstea consolidated the advantage with a stunning forehand winner and an ace, and in Kvitova’s next service game she stood within two points of the set at 0-30. 

But the two-time Wimbledon champion, continuing a period of resurgence that began when she reached the final in Cincinnati last August, came out swinging, forcing her way back into the game with a flurry of big forehands before sealing it with an ace. More big hitting denied Cirstea two set points as she served for the set at 40-15, and suddenly the contest turned on its head, an early break in the second set handing Kvitova an advantage she would not relinquish.

“I have to say she played quite well,” said Cirstea. “Love thirty, 5-2, she served really good there. It was new balls, it was very quick. Every time we had new balls, she was swinging more. It was very hard to control.”

Now Kvitova must face a kindred spirit, a player happy to fight fire with fire.

Should Rybakina prevail, she will rise to a career-high ranking of sixth. More significantly, she will also move to the top of the WTA race rankings, perhaps offering a truer reflection of where she currently stands in the global pecking order.

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Counter-intuitive? Most certainly. Effective? The 6-4, 6-3 victory that saw Cirstea advance to the semi-final of a WTA 1000 event for the first time in a decade – and only the second time in a career spanning 17 years – would suggest so.

At the age of 32, Cirstea is having a moment. The Romanian, ranked 74th but once as high as 21, is playing with a boldness and belief that always felt tantalisingly close, yet has only rarely come to fruition. In Indian Wells, where she reached the quarter-finals earlier this month, Cirstea eliminated Caroline Garcia, the world No 4 and WTA Finals champion. Drawn against the Frenchwoman again in Miami, she not only repeated her victory but also backed it up with notable wins over Karolina Muchova and Marketa Vondrousova. 

It had been a fruitful period for Cirstea even before she faced down Sabalenka, the Australian Open champion, Indian Wells finalist and now the highest-ranked opponent she has ever beaten. Yet it was the manner of Cirstea’s win, rather than any statistical milestone, that most impressed. She has always had the weapons; the challenge, for a player with a history of injuries and inconsistency, has been how best to deploy them.

“I don’t know much about numbers and results, and I don’t keep track,” said Cirstea, who is already guaranteed to return to the brink of the top 40 next week and may yet climb considerably higher. “I think as a player you try to just focus more on the work rather than on the mathematical rankings and all that on paper. 

“I think I have always been a good player. I have always been a dangerous player. I have always had a big game, but sometimes I lacked a bit of consistency. So I would have, let’s say, three, four months when I was playing really well, and then drop the level and then come back again.

“In these 10 years [since reaching the 2013 Canadian Open final, her best previous run at this level] I feel like I have had great results as well, and periods where I was playing very, very well. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to keep that level the whole year. 

“It’s always a puzzle, and now all the pieces are starting to come together.”

A central figure in that process has been Thomas Johansson, the former Australian Open champion and world No 7, with whom Cirstea began working last October after a shoulder injury cut short her season. Their partnership has been less about forehands and backhands and more about what Cirstea calls “tennis IQ”: the ability to read the game, to be aware of the dynamics of court positioning, to ally shot-making ability with tactical clarity. All those qualities were in evidence against Sabalenka, given vocal reinforcement by the watchful Johansson.

The tone was set in the opening game, where the Belarusian double-faulted before Cirstea rifled a forehand return winner to bring up three break points. Cirstea’s willingness to take on her returns, particularly against the second serve, was to become a recurrent motif, instilling early doubts in the mind of an opponent who had gone unbroken in the previous two rounds. Elena Rybakina established the efficacy of the tactic in the Indian Wells final, where 10 double-faults played a major role in Sabalenka’s undoing, and Cirstea took a leaf straight out of the Kazakh’s playbook, ratcheting up the pressure on Sabalenka’s second ball. The cumulative pressure proved intolerable: three of Sabalenka’s six double-faults came on break points.

“I knew I had to come out swinging, and I had to be strong at the beginning, because once she gets that first few games, you know she’s going to be on a roll, she starts swinging more and more and it’s definitely difficult,” said Cirstea, who will face either Ekaterina Alexandrova or Petra Kvitova in the last four. 

“The main thing was for me to be aggressive, not let her dictate the points.”

It was a remit Cirstea fulfilled to perfection, going toe-to-toe with Sabalenka in the baseline exchanges, refusing to give ground. The Belarusian, so accustomed to dictating, looked increasingly forlorn as the contest wore on, gesturing in frustration towards her coach, Anton Dubrov, as Cirstea stepped inside the baseline and fired hard, deep shots down the centre of the court, denying her angles. Sabalenka was not helped by hot, lively conditions that put control at a premium.

“It definitely wasn’t my best match,” Sabalenka acknowledged. “I was struggling a lot with the conditions, like heat. I felt like balls were flying too much and I couldn’t find control, controlling the ball.

“I was just trying to do my best till the last point. I just couldn’t adjust to these conditions, unfortunately.”  

Sabalenka recovered one break, nailing a forehand approach shot to level the first set at 4-4, but was soon left swatting at the ground in frustration as she gifted the initiative back to Cirstea with another double-fault. A spate of backhand errors followed in the next game, Sabalenka waving her arms in exasperation as Cirstea calmly fired down an ace to seal the opening set. 

Inevitably, a bathroom break followed. But not even a seven-minute delay could take Cirstea out of her stride. As the Romanian feasted on a second serve, slamming yet another winning return down the line, Sabalenka rolled her eyes heavenward. Predictably, a double-fault followed. By the time Cirstea completed a straightforward hold to consolidate the advantage, she had won 12 of the previous 15 points. At a set and a break down, the alarm bells were ringing for Sabalenka.

The Australian Open champion responded by dialling up the power. She held, broke with a searing backhand winner, and held again with the help of two aces. The impression that the tide might be turning hardened in the next game when Cirstea double-faulted after recovering from 0-30 down.

Instead, a pair of Cirstea aces sandwiched a wild backhand from Sabalenka. Further frustration quickly followed for the Belarusian, a poked backhand return winner from Cirstea bringing up another break point – and another double-fault. The Romanian would not be caught.

“I always believed that with this game I can do great things,” said Cirstea.

With that belief so richly vindicated over the past month, it will be fascinating to see where she goes from here.

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