The biggest casualty came early. Shortly after cutting short a morning practice session, Aryna Sabalenka, seeded third and twice a semi-finalist at the All England Club, withdrew from the tournament with a shoulder injury. The 26-year-old subsequently took to social media to say she was “heartbroken” to have to pull out of her scheduled first-round match against Emina Bektas of the United States.

“I tried everything to get myself ready but unfortunately my shoulder is not co-operating,” wrote Sabalenka. “I pushed myself to the limit in practice today to try my best, but my team explained that playing would only make things much worse.”

Sabalenka, who also withdrew from her quarter-final match at last month’s Berlin Open with shoulder pain, spoke openly of her physical struggles before the tournament, yet that did little to mitigate the sense of shock surrounding her withdrawal. With the likes of Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray all but clambering off the operating table and straight on to the practice courts in recent weeks, we have become inured to top players defying medical probability. But not every physical issue can be surmounted, and Sabalenka’s injury – to the teres major, a small but important muscle that runs under the shoulder joint and controls abduction and internal rotation – has caused her pain on her service, the bedrock of her game. Her frustration has been magnified by the fact that she can perform other movements without pain.

“The most annoying thing is that I can do anything, I can practise, I can hit my groundstrokes, but I’m struggling with serving, so that’s really annoying,” Sabalenka said at the weekend. 

“You don’t feel like you are injured, you know. If you give me some weights, I’m going to go and lift some weights. But if you tell me to serve, I’m going to go through pain.”

Sabalenka’s absence will be keenly felt, particularly with four of the world’s top six in the upper half of the draw. Coco Gauff, seeded second, was originally expected to face the two-time Australian Open championin the semi-finals. The American has never been beyond the fourth round, but made a winning start against Caroline Dolehide, dismissing her compatriot 6-2, 6-1 to erase the memory of last year’s first-round exit to Sofia Kenin. Gauff is not getting ahead of herself following Sabalenka’s withdrawal.

“I wouldn’t have probably played her till the semis,” said Gauff. “At that point, it’s just like, ‘This is the semi-finals of a grand slam.’ No matter who you play, it’s going to be a tough person to play. 

“But it is unfortunate that she had to pull out. She’s always a contender in every slam and [on] every surface. She’s such a competitor.”

Sabalenka was swiftly followed out of the tournament by another Belarusian nursing a shoulder injury. Victoria Azarenka, seeded 16th and also a two-time semi-finalist in SW19, had been scheduled to face Sloane Stephens in a battle of former major winners, but was likewise forced to withdraw. Stephens, the 2017 US Open champion, despatched Azarenka’s replacement, French lucky loser Elsa Jacquemot, 6-3, 6-3.

That left Karolina Pliskova, a finalist in 2021, as the only remaining player in the bottom half of the draw with experience of the latter stages. However, the 32-year-old Czech was beaten 4-6, 7-5, 6-4 by Diana Shnaider, the recently crowned Bad Homburg champion. If that deepened an already palpable sense of opportunity, the door was pushed further ajar when Lulu Sun, a 23-old-qualifier ranked 123 in the world, defeated Qinwen Zheng, the Chinese world No 8. The New Zealander defeated Zheng, who was seeded to meet Sabalenka in the quarter-finals in a repeat of this year’s Australian Open final, 4-6, 6-2, 6-4.

Among those hoping to capitalise on Zheng’s loss will be Emma Raducanu, the former US Open champion, who was beneficiary of yet another late withdrawal. Originally expected to face Ekaterina Alexandrova, the 22nd seed, Raducanu instead found herself up against Mexico’s Renata Zarzua, a lucky loser ranked 98 in the world. The British wild card, ranked 135, prevailed 7-6 (7-0), 6-3 and will next face Elise Mertens of Belgium, the world’s best doubles player, who came from behind to see off Japan’s Nao Hibino 2-6, 6-2, 6-4.

Should Raducanu advance to the third round, she could meet Maria Sakkari, the Greek ninth seed, who navigated the opening round of a major for only the second time in six attempts with a 6-3, 6-1 win over McCartney Kessler of the United States. 

The post Sabalenka withdrawal blows Wimbledon draw wide open appeared first on Love Game Tennis.

Ten weeks ago at the Australian Open, Rybakina came out on the wrong side of the longest tiebreak in grand slam singles history, losing a 42-point shootout to Anna Blinkova. Pushed to a final-set shootout for the first time since, it would have been natural for her mind to drift back to that gut-wrenching defeat. 

But as the 24-year-old vied with Victoria Azarenka for a place in the Miami Open final, nothing could have been further from her mind. She was not thinking of Australia, or Blinkova, or the six match points she missed on that January night in Melbourne. She was not dwelling on a remarkably one-sided second set in which Azarenka turned a match she had been controlling on its head with a run of 16 straight points. Nor was she preoccupied by the thought that, less than 10 minutes earlier, she had stood just two points from victory as she served for the match at 5-4. All that mattered now was a clear mind.

“I knew that in the tiebreak the only chance for me to win was just to switch off my mind and just try to go for it,” said Rybakina following her dramatic 6-4, 0-6, 7-6 (7-2) victory. 

“I didn’t even remember that last time I played in Australia, the tiebreak. But definitely, all the matches I played here, it was a battle for every point with all the opponents. 

“I was not really thinking much. I knew it’s a tiebreak, it’s a kind of roulette, it might not go your way, especially from the beginning – and it went my way.”

Through to the final for a second straight year, Rybakina will face a player cast in the same powerful mould in Danielle Collins, who maintained her dominant form at the tournament with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Ekaterina Alexandrova, the 14th seed. 

“I’m looking forward to playing Elena,” said Collins after reaching the first WTA 1000 final of her career in her last season as a professional. “We have had a lot of great matches previously, some battles. That’s what we play for as professional athletes, these close ones. 

“Every time I have played her, it’s neck and neck. These games are close, the points are close, they are long, challenging points. Big serves from both of us. Big returns, big groundstrokes. I think we will go out there and put on a great show and it will be a fun match.”

Rybakina could be forgiven for hoping that their latest meeting bucks that trend. The Kazakhstani has won her past three matches against the unseeded American – her sole defeat came during Collins’s title run in San Jose in 2021 – but all have gone the distance. After being pushed to a decider in four of her five matches in Miami, another three-setter is the last thing the world No 4 needs.

“It was really difficult from the beginning,” said Rybakina, who arrived in Florida short of match practice after a gastrointestinal illness forced her to abandon her defence of the Indian Wells title. “For sure I can take a lot from this tournament, a lot of positives. And also, in the beginning, these long matches were helping me to get back in shape. 

“Now I’m not in shape, just because I’m tired of all these long matches. But overall, it was a really successful tournament no matter how I do in the final.”

The post Rybakina edges past Azarenka to set up Collins final in Miami appeared first on Love Game Tennis.

It is just under two years since the 22-year-old last dropped a set in the Qatari capital, and while there were moments in a tightly contested opening set when it seemed possible Victoria Azarenka might dent that impressive record, Swiatek extinguished the danger in ruthless fashion. 

The Polish world No 1 reeled off nine games in a row to claim her 11th consecutive victory at the event, prevailing 6-4, 6-0 to secure a semi-final showdown with Karolina Pliskova, who later defeated Naomi Osaka 7-6 (8-6), 7-6 (7-5).

It has been very much business as usual for Swiatek, who arrived at the first WTA 1000 event of the season insisting that her past record meant nothing, only to make a mockery of that analysis with a series of outstanding performances. In her opening match, she demolished Sorana Cirstea, the dangerous Romanian world No 22, for the loss of just two games. Then she saved all eight break points she faced in a combative second set against Ekaterina Alexandrova, the powerful 14th-seeded Russian. And against Azarenka, Swiatek took her total of sets won by a 6-0 or 6-1 scoreline at the tournament to 11 of the past 23. It is, undeniably, a venue she likes.

“I do, that’s true,” said Swiatek. “I was really excited to come here, I always feel like it’s a great place to just focus on playing tennis, no fuss around that is not necessary. I’m just really in the work zone and I’m really enjoying being here.”

It showed. 

With Azarenka serving at 4-4, 30-40, the faintest hint of a smile flickered across Swiatek’s lips as she glanced towards her team after making a hash of an inviting return. The Pole is not particularly noted for a sanguine disposition in such circumstances, yet her reaction spoke of calmness, confidence, a player relishing the battle. That sangfroid served her well, a thunderous backhand immediately earning a second break point which the anguished Azarenka conceded with a double fault.

After a nip-and-tuck start that featured an early exchange of breaks and countless absorbing baseline exchanges, it was to prove a turning point. Swiatek began to focus her attack on Azarenka’s forehand, drawing the Belarusian ever wider before exploiting the open space. She has spoken this week of the need to strike a better balance between defence and attack, and here she did precisely that, patiently constructing the points before pulling the trigger.     

Azarenka, twice a champion herself in Doha, defeated Jelena Ostapenko in the previous round, her fifth win in five matches against the Latvian removing a substantial obstacle from the path of Swiatek, who has lost all four of her previous meetings with Ostapenko. It has been another fine week for the 34-year-old but, as the physicality of the contest caught up with her, her game began to unravel.  

“I struggled a little bit to find my rhythm in the first set, but then I kind of learned my lesson and just played in a really solid way,” said Swiatek. “I was happy with how I kept my focus in the second set, and I just went for it and didn’t look back.”

Another former world No 1 awaits in the semi-finals in the shape of Pliskova, whose victory over Osaka was her ninth in 10 days, following last week’s title run in Cluj-Napoca. It has been a Herculean effort by the Czech, who was relieved to clinch victory in the second of two tiebreaks after Osaka saved a match point at 5-4 in the second set, and then fended off two more at 6-5. 

“[I’m] happy that I survived somehow and didn’t have to stay for the third set,” said Pliskova, who slept for only four hours before her opening-round win over Anna Kalinskaya on Monday, having played the final in Romania the previous day. The 31-year-old has lost all three of her previous meetings with Swiatek.

“I will have nothing to lose,” said Pliskova. “I have to play well, go for my shots and hopefully there’s going to be a small chance, I believe, if it’s windy a little bit, because I feel like I have a strong game in the wind.”

In the bottom half, Elena Rybakina defeated Leylah Fernandez 6-4, 6-2 to set up a last-four showdown with Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who claimed a 7-5, 6-4 victory over Danielle Collins.

The post Swiatek sees off Azarenka to reach semi-finals in Doha appeared first on Love Game Tennis.

The start of the Italian Open has been blighted by the fallout from the controversy, which came after Victoria Azarenka and Beatriz Haddad Maia defeated Jessica Pegula and Coco Gauff in Sunday’s final. Rather than addressing the crowd after receiving their trophies, as is traditional, the bemused quartet were directed straight to the podium for photographs.  

“We sincerely apologise to all the players and fans who expect more of the Mutua Madrid Open tournament,” Gerard Tsobanian, the tournament’s CEO, said in a statement. 

“Not giving our women’s doubles finalists the chance to address their fans at the end of the match was unacceptable and we have apologised directly to Victoria, Beatriz, Coco and Jessica. 

“We are working internally and with the WTA to review our protocols and are committed to improving our process moving forward. We made a mistake and this will not ever happen again.”

No explanation was offered for the reasoning behind the decision, which has been widely criticised, not least by Pegula and Gauff. 

Australia’s John Millman, a former world No 33, added his voice to the chorus of disapproval following Tsobanian’s statement, responding on Twitter: “‘Working internally to review protocols’ …It’s pretty simple. Show some proper respect. It’s the very least they deserve.”

The furore marked the culmination of a turbulent 10 days at the Caja Mágica, where accusations of sexism came thick and fast. 

The crop tops and pleated skirts worn by the ball girls were branded discriminatory by Soledad Murillo, Spain’s secretary of state for equality, and were replaced by less revealing outfits for the men’s singles final between Carlos Alcaraz and Jan-Lennard Struff. 

A row also erupted over the disparity in size between birthday cakes the tournament presented to Aryna Sabalenka and Alcaraz. Azarenka retweeted a picture highlighting the difference, writing: “Couldn’t be more accurate on the treatment.”

Whether officials had that in mind when they decided not to invite the doubles finalists to speak is impossible to know, but Azarenka was reportedly unimpressed by the late start to her semi-final match. Iga Swiatek, the World No 1, took aim at the tournament’s scheduling after her defeat to Sabalenka in the women’s final, and it may have been fear of similar barbs that prompted the organisers to pull the plug. 

“What happened in terms of doubles was completely unacceptable,” Azarenka, a 6-4, 6-3 winner over Sloane Stephens at the Italian Open, told the Guardian. “There’s a lot of conversations, obviously, internally, of what happened and I want to see how that develops and what are the consequences of those decisions. 

“So that’s why I don’t want to make too many comments. I believe to give people the opportunity to figure out what’s the best course of action. Do I think it’s unacceptable? It’s absolutely unacceptable.”

The post Madrid Open apologises as Azarenka slams treatment appeared first on Love Game Tennis.

It is only a fortnight since Raducanu was forced to pull out of a tournament in Texas after contracting tonsilitis, a setback from which was still reeling when the wrist injury that hampered her towards the end of last season returned. Those latest unwelcome additions to the extensive catalogue of injuries and ailments from which the world No 77 has suffered since her victory at Flushing Meadows hardly augured well for her appearance at Indian Wells. Yet, having coughed and spluttered her way past Montenegro’s Danka Kovinic in the opening round, the 20-year-old can now point to palpable evidence of progress.

With her steely win over Linette, the Polish world No 21 who reached the semi-finals of this year’s Australian Open, Raducanu achieved her best victory by ranking since she defeated Maria Sakkari in the last four of the US Open. It was also the first time she has won two matches in a row since she made the last four at the Korea Open almost six months ago. More important than any statistical milestone, however, was the tenacious manner of the win. 

Regularly shaking off her wrist between points, Raducanu was in obvious discomfort as she lost four of the first five games. It did not help that Linette, a player whose consistency, athleticism and defensive skills typically ensure that every point must be earned, was barely putting a foot wrong. Gradually, though, Raducanu began to adapt to the nature of the challenge, abandoning her initial policy of all-out aggression in favour of a more measured approached. As she applied more shape to her shots, driving Linette off the baseline with heavy topspin and biding her time in the rallies, the Pole’s assurance began to wane.

No Raducanu match would be complete without a visit from the trainer, and here it came immediately after Raducanu had broken to lead 6-5. It was an inopportune moment to stop for a medical timeout, and the Briton wisely declined that offer, electing instead to soldier on after taking a painkiller. She was immediately broken to love but, with Linette increasingly struggling to find the court, Raducanu rattled through the tiebreak and did not look back.

“I feel more positive about my game today,” said Raducanu, who showed no sign of the coughing and laboured breathing that affected her in her opening match. 

“The first day [against Kovinic] I didn’t really know what was going on. Today I felt pretty decent out there, especially with the conditions. It was really windy. I did well to overcome it.”

Raducanu declined to elaborate on the nature of her wrist problem, saying only that she was “managing it”. Nor did she show any inclination to bemoan her run of bad luck with injuries and illness.

“Sometimes you wonder, you think, how is this possible?” she mused. “But I think you create your own luck. It works both ways. I won the US Open as well, and I think I also have to take the bad luck sometimes, because good fortune has also come upon me. 

“I wouldn’t trade that title for the world. I’m just prepared to take whatever it takes, knowing that I have that in the bank.”

What Anne Keothavong, Britain’s Billie Jean King Cup captain, would give to know that she has Raducanu in the bank for next month’s qualifying clash against France. Asked after her match against Kovinic whether she would be playing, the British No 1 said she hadn’t thought about but would decide once she knew the dates. That drew a bemused response from Keothavong, who wrote on social media: “My communication skills are generally good in case anyone was wondering.”

Raducanu is scheduled to play at the Stuttgart Open, which starts on 15 April and is backed by Porsche, one of her chief sponsors. Britain face France in Coventry on 14 and 15 April.

While Raducanu advances to a third-round meeting with Brazil’s Beatriz Haddad Maia, the 13th seed, two-time champion Victoria Azarenka is out. Azarenka, seeded 14th, was beaten 7-6 (7-1), 6-3 by Karolina Muchova, whose commitment to attack and superior handling of the gusty conditions proved decisive. 

Azarenka’s exit promises to ease the progress of Ons Jabeur through the second quarter of the draw. Jabeur, the fourth seed, marked her return from knee surgery with a 4-6, 6-4, 6-1 victory over Poland’s Magdalena Frech.

French, who made it into the main draw as a lucky loser, made the most of an error-strewn start by the Tunisian, taking a set off a top-10 player for the first time. But Jabeur gradually found her range, forcing a break in the ninth game of the second set behind some heavy forehands, serving out to level the contest and then easing through the decider. The 28-year-old, who revealed afterwards that her knee is no more than “80%, getting there”, said she had nothing to lose in the next round against Marketa Vondrousova, who consigned her to an early defeat at the Australian Open a couple of months ago.   

“It’s a tough decision to come back, and I was the one that insisted that I come back in Indian Wells and Miami,” said Jabeur. “It was probably too early to come back, but I just made it a new challenge for myself.

“I did regret it after the first set. But then, you know, I just told myself to accept what’s happening, to fight through it, and to just see how it goes. I’m sure it will get better and better every match.”

Iga Swiatek, the top seed, will be hard pushed to achieve that after opening her title defence with a blistering performance. Swiatek swept past Claire Liu, the American world No 56, 6-1, 60 to book a third-round appointment with Bianca Andreescu, the 32nd seed and former US Open champion.

The post Raducanu overcomes injury to beat Linette in Indian Wells appeared first on Love Game Tennis.

A case in point came with the Belarusian fifth seed serving against Poland’s Magdalena Linette for a place in the Australian Open final. She had already missed three match points in the previous game and, as she snatched impatiently at a backhand and the ball clipped the net tape, falling just short of the scampering Linette’s outstretched racket, Sabalenka’s anxiety was clear. Moments later, she delivered her first double fault of the set.

The serving difficulties the 24-year-old experienced last year are well documented. So too is the remedial work she did with Gavin MacMillan, a biomechanics expert who helped her to remodel her service motion. What is less often talked about is the mental strength that enabled Sabalenka to compete for most of last season without the cornerstone of her game. It says something when a player can hit 428 double faults in a year but still make finals in Stuttgart and Rosmalen, advance to the fourth round of the Australian Open, and end the campaign in surging style by reaching the US Open semi-finals and the title round at the WTA Finals.

Against Linette, Sabalenka showed her steel again, finding four first serves – including a 116mph ace – to seal a 7-6, (7-1), 6-2 victory that sees her advance to a first grand slam final. There, she will face Elena Rybakina, the Wimbledon champion, who claimed a 7-6 (7-4), 6-3 win over former world No 1 Victoria Azarenka. Already, it is being billed as a battle of power against power. 

In some ways it will be exactly that, given the obvious stylistic similarities between the two big-serving, big-hitting women. Yet the slower conditions at this year’s tournament, where there have been complaints about the balls rapidly losing pressure and fluffing up, suggest brute force will not be the only factor. The greater emotional control to which Sabalenka has attributed her recent good form has been mirrored in her shot-making, with the Belarusian frequently favouring placement and spin over pure velocity. No doubt there has also been an element of tailoring her game to the conditions, a necessity Rybakina acknowledged as she looked ahead to the final.   

“Maybe I will not have to serve that big, that fast, so it doesn’t really matter the speed,” said Rybakina, who defeated top seed Iga Swiatek in the last 16. “It’s important to have a good placement on the serve. In these conditions, to serve full, full power, it’s not easy. The ball is not really going.  

“Same on the baseline. Just to play more deeper and do the same thing, try to come forward, just to expect maybe longer rallies than usual.”

It would be wrong to imagine that similar thoughts have not occurred to Sabalenka. Yet it is easy to see her simply as a human wrecking ball. A title winner in Adelaide before the Australian Open, she has now won 10 matches in a row without dropping a set. She has been striking her forehand with such venom that, as the former Australian player Casey Dellacqua informed her after her semi-final victory, her average ball speed (approximately 86mph) is comparable to the leading men. She certainly had too much force for Linette, whose defensive skills and ability to absorb and redirect the power coming at her only lasted until the first-set tiebreak, at which point Sabalenka stepped on the pedal and left the Pole for dust.

Yet the true measure of Sabalenka’s strength is not the weaponry at her disposal, or the speed at which she deploys it, but the mental steel that allows her to approach the game as she does in the first place. The Belarusian has often been criticised for lacking a fallback strategy, a plan B for those days when more is required than simply trying to rip the cover off the ball. Less attention is paid to the courage and self-belief that allows her to smoke every ball from start to finish. Like Caroline Garcia, another specialist in all-out attack, Sabalenka has a game style that requires a deep reservoir of conviction. 

It says something too that Sabalenka, channelling a newfound calmness, has been able to put the loss of her three previous grand slam semi-finals behind her. Only Gabriela Sabatini, Zina Garrison, Lindsay Davenport and Jennifer Capriati have shown comparable resilience in the open era. Having made her first final, however, Sabalenka is not done yet. She wants more, as her measured reaction to beating Linette indicated.

“There is still one more match to go,” she said. “It’s good that I broke through in the semi-finals, but there is one more match to go. I just want to stay focused.”

With power not the be all and end all, the mental battle will be intriguing. Having finally broken her semi-final duck, will Sabalenka approach the match with a newfound sense of liberation? Or will the experience Rybakina gained at the All England Club last summer, the knowledge of how to navigate a grand slam final, prove decisive? It certainly served the Kazakh well as she fought back from a break down against Azarenka to seal a straight-sets win.

“For me, this time I would say it was a bit easier compared to Wimbledon, when I was playing for the first time quarters, semis, final,” said the 23-year-old, who frequently struggled on serve against Azarenka. “I knew that I have to focus on every point. I think in the end I did really well.”

Rybakina, seeded 22nd, did not earn ranking points for her Wimbledon victory because of the WTA’s decision to strip the tournament of points in response to its ban on Russian and Belarusian players. Come what may on Saturday, she will finally move into the top 10 for the first time next week, a ranking more commensurate with her ability. It should spell an end to her days of being relegated to the backwaters of the outside courts.

As for Sabalenka, she says she will prepare as normal for the biggest match of her career.

“I’m not going to do something extra,” she said. “I think it’s okay to feel a little bit nervous. It’s a big tournament, big final. If you’re going to start trying to do something about that, it’s going to become bigger, you know?”

Sabalenka has done more than most to show she can take a challenge in her stride.

The post Sabalenka to face Rybakina in Australian Open final appeared first on Love Game Tennis.

In a spellbinding performance against Jessica Pegula, the nominal title favourite at Melbourne Park, Azarenka offered a reminder of her enduring quality, dismissing the American third seed 6-4, 6-1 in an hour and 37 minutes. The contest was as full of long, punishing exchanges as its duration suggests, the surprise being that it was almost invariably Azarenka who came out on top of them.  

Taking the ball early and directing it with power, length and accuracy, the Belarusian played Pegula at her own game. She leavened the mix with occasional slices and looped balls to disrupt the American’s rhythm, and returned with a venom and consistency that earned her 13 opportunities to break, five of which she converted. Combined with some sharp play in the forecourt, it was an irresistible formula.

“I knew I had to play fast, I had to not give her opportunity to step in, I had to mix it up,” said Azarenka. “There’s nobody better than Jess, she just doesn’t miss. I felt like I did some interesting slices. You know what, I was like, ‘You’re doing the right thing. Even if it looks like crap, it’s fine, it’s the right way to do it.’”

Pegula arrived at Melbourne Park on a high after a series of outstanding performances at the United Cup, not least a straight-sets demolition of Iga Swiatek, who has regularly tormented her in the latter stages of big events. When the Polish world No 1 suffered a fourth-round defeat to Elena Rybakina, joining second seed Ons Jabeur on the sidelines, Pegula became the de facto favourite. Yet despite making seamless progress to the last eight, dispatching four opponents in straight sets including former French Open champion Barbora Krejcikova, the 28-year-old never really embraced that status. 

When it was pointed out to Pegula that she was the highest seed remaining, she simply replied that she was the only quarter-finalist in the top half not to have won a slam. It was not exactly fighting talk, and facing a mirror image of herself will hardly have allayed her sense of unease.

“She was just executing it, I feel, pretty well tonight – hitting the ball deep, taking it early, changing the direction on the ball, doing things that I usually like to do to people,” said Pegula. 

“She always returns well, and when she doesn’t have too many ups and downs on her serve, that can really make her dangerous. She was scrambling well tonight, getting a lot of really good depth on her shots. Just made it tough for me to feel like I could really pressure her. I felt like she was pressuring me constantly, the whole time.”

For Azarenka, the journey back to this point has been long. She was a finalist at the US Open in 2020, but it is 10 years since she last reached the semi-finals in Melbourne, and her memories of that occasion are not good. Although she completed a straight-sets win over Sloane Stephens, her victory was eclipsed by accusations of gamesmanship after she left the court for a medical timeout with Stephens about to serve to stay in the match. In the aftermath, Azarenka was accused of feigning injury. 

Novak Djokovic has been the subject of similar speculation in recent days, with doubts in some quarters about the severity of a hamstring injury that has prompted him to take medical timeouts in two of his four matches. Djokovic has expressed his frustration to reporters from his native Serbia, and Azarenka said she could relate to his feelings.

“It was one of the worst things that I’ve ever gone through in my professional career, the way I was treated after that moment, the way I had to explain myself until 10.30 at night because people didn’t want to believe me,” said Azarenka, who added that it has taken her until now to get over the episode. 

“I actually can resonate what Novak said the other day. There is incredible desire for a villain and a hero story that has to be written. But we’re not villains, we’re not heroes, we are regular human beings that go through so many, many things.  

“Assumptions and judgments, all those comments, are just shit, because nobody’s there to see the full story. It didn’t matter how many times I said my story, it did not cut through.”

A decade on, it is Azarenka’s tennis that is doing the talking. She will face Rybakina, a 6-2, 6-4 winner over former French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko, for a place in the final.

The post Azarenka stuns Pegula to make last four in Melbourne appeared first on Love Game Tennis.

Kostyuk, who earlier this year called for a ban on Russian and Belarusian players unwilling to denounce the Putin regime’s invasion of Ukraine, which is supported by Belarus, said she had warned the former world No 1 of her intentions in a text message. 

“I just don’t think it’s the right thing to do in the circumstances I’m in right now,” said Kostyuk, the world No 65. 

“It was just my choice. I don’t know any single person who condemned the war publicly and the actions of their government, so I don’t feel like I can support this. We had a great match, don’t get me wrong. She’s a great competitor, I respect her as an athlete, but that has nothing to do with her as a human being.”

Azarenka, who played down the significance of the frosty conclusion to her first meeting with Kostyuk, declined to elaborate on her feelings about the incident. 

“I don’t believe that making a big deal out of it is important,” said the two-time Australian Open champion. “I always shake hands with my opponents. I had the same situation with [Daria] Yastremska in Washington. It is what it is. I just move on. I cannot force anybody to shake my hand. It’s their decision.

“How did it make me feel? It’s not the most important thing in the world right now.”

Since war broke out in February, Kostyuk has repeatedly expressed her disappointment over the failure of Russian and Belarusian players to speak out. She reiterated her view that high-profile contemporaries such as Azarenka should be using their profile to denounce the Russian offensive.

“Some of them have such big fanbases, they have people supporting and looking out for them from all over the world,” said Kostyuk, 20. “Having the fanbase that they have, [they] don’t use it in the right way, and to spread the good message: that they don’t support the murders, the rapes, the genocide that is happening.”

Kostyuk’s comments came barely a week after she took aim at Azarenka over her planned participation in the US Open’s Tennis Plays for Peace exhibition event, which raised $1.2m for humanitarian relief efforts in Ukraine. In the face of opposition from Ukrainian players – not least Kostyuk, who declined her invitation to play on learning of the Belarusian’s inclusion – the United States Tennis Association announced on the day of the event that Azarenka would not be involved.

“Everyone’s trying to be super democratic about this,” said Kostyuk. “My nation is being killed daily. Imagine there is world war II and there is a fundraiser for Jewish people, and a German player wants to play – during the war, not 70 years after the war. I don’t think Jewish people would understand.”

Azarenka rebuffed a suggestion from Kostyuk that her role on the WTA player council made it incumbent on her to speak out about the war – “with all due respect, I don’t think she has any idea of what I do on the player council, because she’s not there,” said the 33-year-old – and insisted she was “open any time to listen, to try to understand, to sympathise”. The Belarusian added that her desire to support the Ukraine fundraiser was “a no-brainer for me”.

“Why wouldn’t I participate in a humanitarian aid [event] for people who are really struggling right now?” said Azarenka. “It’s not even a thought for me at that moment.

“I thought that [participating] was a gesture that really shows commitment. I’m not sure why it wasn’t taken it that way. I don’t want to judge that, that’s what happened.  

“I make steps towards help, towards listening, and if it’s not received, again, it’s a simple thing. I can’t force it. I’m not going to go and say, ‘Oh, how dare you?’ It’s not my place. My place is to be there to offer, offer my help, and that’s it.”

Iga Swiatek, the world No 1, suggested that a lack of leadership on the part of the game’s governing bodies in the early days of the war had made strained relations inevitable.

“I think the best time for the ATP or the WTA to do anything was when the war started, and where the tension was pretty big in the locker rooms,” said Swiatek, who continued her serene progress through the top half of the draw with an impressive 6-3, 6-2 victory over former US Open champion Sloane Stephens.

“Maybe next time it’s going to be easier for us to handle it if somebody is going to guide us and somebody is going to, I don’t know, even arrange some meetings between players and show that we should be united. 

“Even though there are countries who are invading other countries, we are tennis players. It’s sad, but it’s not our fault that it’s happening. I think it would be much, much easier at the beginning to do that. Right now, it’s kind of too late, I think, to fix that.”

Elsewhere in the women’s draw, Aryna Sabalenka almost left it too late to fix things against Kaia Kanepi of Estonia before staging a remarkable recovery from a set and 5-1 down. Sabalenka, a semi-finalist at Flushing Meadows last year, saved two match points in the second-set tiebreak – one with the help of a net cord – to advance 2-6, 7-6 (10-8), 6-4.

There was no such luck for Spanish fourth seed Paula Badosa, however, who was beaten 6-7 (5-7), 6-1, 6-2 by Petra Martic. Azarenka awaits the Croatian in round three. 

The post ‘My nation is being killed’: Kostyuk spurns Azarenka after US Open loss appeared first on Love Game Tennis.

Every player has their own path, however, and six years on – and after much toil – Badosa, now 23, has acquired the conviction of a champion. Facing Victoria Azarenka in the final of Indian Wells, she needed every ounce of that self-belief and work ethic to survive an extraordinary comeback from the indefatigable former world No 1, but survive she did, prevailing 7-6 (7-5), 2-6, 7-6 (7-2) to win the biggest match of her career. 

The victory cements a breakthrough season for the New York-born Spaniard, who won her first WTA title in Belgrade in May, and subsequently reached the quarter-finals at both the French Open and the Olympics. She will now rise to a career-high 13th in the rankings, her prospects of winning a place at the season-ending WTA Tour finals in Guadalajara significantly improved. 

“It was a really tough match,” said Badosa, who also beat grand slam champions Barbora Krejcikova and Angelique Kerber en route to the final. “I think it was like a rollercoaster mentally, emotionally. It was my first final in a [WTA] 1000. I had a lot of emotions. I was playing Vika. She’s a great champion. I admire her since I was a little girl, so that’s another thing.

“It was amazing. I’m still a little bit in shock that what happened right now. But in that moment, I was super excited and super proud of what I did, after three hours fighting on court.”

At three hours and four minutes, it was the longest women’s final this year. It was also quite possibly the finest. The opening set, an epic tussle spanning an hour and 18 minutes, was a classic in its own right, a carousel of ferocious, gruelling baseline exchanges. It began with Badosa fending off three break points to win a nine-minute service game, continued with Azarenka saving three of her own in the next game, and culminated in a tiebreak after the players had shared two breaks each – and a combined total of 15 break points. There was, quite literally, nothing between the two women, who won 55 points each, Badosa finally squeaking home by the narrowest of margins with a searing crosscourt backhand winner. 

“I would agree with comparing it to the match of the year,” said Azarenka, who was left to rue the loss of the opening set after recovering from 4-3 and 6-5 down. “I think the entire match, the quality of tennis was [at a] super-high level. We were both going for our shots, really pushing each other to the max.

“I think that’s what made it super entertaining, that competitive spirit, really fighting for every ball, not giving in anywhere. It’s very challenging to maintain that.”

Many would have folded after falling behind; Azarenka simply greeted it as a spur to further effort. Badosa spoke warmly afterwards of how the Belarusian had inspired her as a rising teenager. If she wondered back then what it would take to become a member of the game’s elite, she knows beyond doubt now. Azarenka, twice a champion in Indian Wells, was magnificent, exuding positive energy and levelling the match almost through sheer force of will. After a break in the ninth game of the decider, she stood two points from victory only to be undone by errors. Badosa seized the reprieve with both hands.

“I knew that for any player in the world, even a champion, it’s very tough to close the match. I knew I had to stay there as much as I can, keep fighting. I tried to fight for every point in the 5-4 game. I think I played very good from 5-5 to 7-6.”

The post Badosa beats Azarenka to claim Indian Wells title appeared first on Love Game Tennis.

Ons Jabeur had struggled all evening to find her best tennis, but as she served to stay in the match at a set and 5-2 down, the Tunisian’s game was belatedly sparking into life. Jabeur saved one match point with a crisp, ankle-height volley and another with an overhead. A conservative return proved Badosa’s undoing on a third, and when Jabeur not only held but immediately opened up a 0-40 lead in the next game, the Spaniard’s first serve deserting her, a result that had looked a formality only moments earlier suddenly hung in the balance.

The Badosa who started this year ranked 70th in the world might have buckled. The Badosa who will rise to a career high of 11th if she prevails in Sunday’s final against Victoria Azarenka refused to yield. Badosa had shown steely resolve to see out a straight sets win over Angelique Kerber in the previous round after the German had clawed her way back into contention from a set and 5-2 down, and her self-belief was once again evident here. An off-forehand winner and a couple of solid points from the back brought the 21st seed back to deuce, and although she would miss a further two match points – the first when a thunderbolt forehand from Jabeur kissed the back edge of the baseline, the next with a nervy double fault, her second of the game – Badosa finally clinched the contest at the sixth opportunity, a Jabeur backhand drifting wide.

Badosa may not have Jabeur’s extensive repertoire of shots at her disposal, but this was a performance that spoke volumes about her virtues, from the excellence of her return game to her superb movement and teak-tough mentality. Jabeur, who with her quarter-final win over Anett Kontaevit became the first Arab player to make the top 10, had rightly stolen the headlines going into the contest. But Badosa’s progress in the California desert, where, in addition to Kerber, she has also seen off Coco Gauff for the loss of just four games and beaten French Open champion Barbora Krejcikova, has been no less impressive. Like Jabeur, she will rise to a career-high ranking next week, breaking into the top 20 for the first time regardless of the outcome against Azarenka, and like Jabeur she is closing in on a possible maiden appearance at the season-ending WTA Tour finals in Guadalajara. 

“I think I improved a lot on my tennis,” said Badosa, the first Spanish woman to reach the final since Conchita Martinez in 1996, following her 6-3, 6-3 win. “Mentally, I think I’m very confident. I’m believing every point. Every day I’m working very hard as well. I think I’m progressing on a little bit of everything and that’s what is making my level going up. That’s why I’m in a final and playing against the best of the world.”

Azarenka, a 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 winner over Jelena Ostapenko, will nonetheless have taken note of Badosa’s recent struggles down the home straight. The Belarusian, twice the champion in Indian Wells, recovered from a set and a break down against Ostapenko, and vowed afterwards: “I’m going to fight until the end, so if you [want] to beat me, you have to beat me all the way.” 

Badosa, for her part, needs no reminding of Azarenka’s pedigree. “Vika, she’s an amazing champion,” said the Spaniard. “She has been here a lot of times. She has a lot of experience there. I expect a tough match.

“I’ve seen her a lot, a lot of finals, winning grand slams, 1000 tournaments. I know how she’s playing. She’s very intense. She’s a tough one. She’s a competitor. She fights until the last ball. 

“But I like these kind of matches. I’ve never been through to a final, so I can’t wait to play it. I always dreamed to be in one. I can’t wait.”

The post Badosa and Azarenka to face off in Indian Wells final appeared first on Love Game Tennis.