MELBOURNE, Australia — It wasn’t often pretty, but two-time defending Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka extended a few impressive streaks on Friday while becoming one of the first players to advance to the fourth round of the year’s opening Grand Slam tournament.
In a tougher-than-expected match, Sabalenka beat Clara Tauson 7-6 (5), 6-4 in a poor early serving display by both players to open the sixth day of play on Rod Laver Arena. It was Sabalenka’s eighth match victory in a row to start the season after winning the Brisbane International 10 days ago, and her 17th win in a row at Melbourne Park.
Also Friday, Belinda Bencic advanced to the last 16 after two-time champion Naomi Osaka retired in their third-round match with an injury.
For the top-ranked Sabalenka, it has been nearly three years — the 2022 French Open — that she has failed to advance past the third round of any Grand Slam tournament in which she played.
Both players lost their first three service games, and it became seven service breaks in a row when Sabalenka lost her fourth service game at love. After Tauson fired an unreturnable backhand cross-court to set up break point, Sabalenka managed a wry smile.
Tauson finally held a service game to lead 5-3 and Sabalenka also won her service game to stay in the first set. But no surprise — the Danish player lost her service while serving for the first set to leave it at 5-5, eventually going to a tiebreaker which Sabalenka won despite leading 4-1, taking the opening set in 63 minutes.
“The conditions are really tough to serve, heavy conditions,” Sabalenka said. “It was really important to get all of those breaks back. It could have gone either way.”
Sabalanka broke Tauson’s serve in the third game of the second set and from there the odds were in Sabalenka’s favor — when Sabalenka has an early break in a set, she wins it 88% of the time. But she still needed a break after seven deuces in the ninth game to put her in control and served out the match — after saving two break points in the final game.
“That was a great battle, she played unbelievable tennis,” Sabalenka said. “I am super happy I was able to push myself. I told myself, ‘well girl, you are tough.’ So many times I thought I was done.”
Bencic took the first set in a tiebreak 7-6(3) before Osaka, who had also pulled out of the Auckland final earlier this month due to an abdominal injury, withdrew from the contest.
Osaka led 5-2 in the opening set but showed signs of struggles with her abdomen and called for a physio during a changeover. The 27-year-old initially soldiered on after treatment before eventually retiring.
“I really feel for Naomi, I saw her struggling a little bit at the end of the set and obviously it’s not the way you would like this match to end,” Bencic said. “I thought it was a good match, so hopefully she’ll be fine soon and she can play well for the rest of the season.”
Bencic will play either third seed Coco Gauff or Leylah Fernandez in the next round.
In another early match Friday, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova beat Laura Siegemund 6-1, 6-2 to also advance to the fourth round. Siegemund beat Olympic gold medalist Zheng Qinwen in the second round.
Also advancing Friday was 11th-seeded Paula Badosa, who beat Marta Kostyuk 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, and 18th-seeded Donna Vekic, who defeated 12th-seeded Diana Shnaider 7-6 (4), 6-7 (3), 7-5..
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
