Aryna Sabalenka Overcomes Naomi Osaka in Thrilling Madrid Open Match
World No 1 and top seed Aryna Sabalenka faced a major challenge from Naomi Osaka at the Madrid Open, surviving an intense battle to advance to the quarter-finals. The Belarusian star was down a set and a break but managed to turn the match around with incredible resilience and skill.
Sabalenka’s victory came after a tough encounter where she had to overcome a strong performance from Osaka. The first set was a tight tiebreak that Sabalenka lost 7-6(1), but she quickly regrouped in the second set. After falling 2-1 down, she broke back to love for 2-2, aided by an Osaka double fault, and then broke again for 5-3 from 40-0 down. This helped her level the match and gain momentum.
In the third set, errors began to creep into Osaka’s game, while Sabalenka remained nearly flawless on serve, dropping just three points. She eventually ran away with the decider, sealing it with an ace to secure a 6-7(1), 6-3, 6-2 win in two hours and 20 minutes. This result keeps her hopes of defending her title and winning a fourth trophy in the Spanish capital alive.
After the match, Sabalenka reflected on the intensity of the game. “Oh my God, that was incredible level. She played incredible tennis. I feel like I just got lucky in a couple shots in the third set, that’s why it went that fast,” she said.
She acknowledged that she dropped her level at the end of the first set, giving Osaka the tiebreak quite easily. However, she expressed satisfaction with her overall performance. “When someone put me under pressure, I was able to pull out really incredible shots and incredible tennis. So I’m happy.”
Sabalenka will now face 30th seed Hailey Baptiste in the quarter-finals for the second consecutive WTA 1000 tournament. Baptiste advanced after a grueling three-set match against Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic.
Baptiste won 6-1, 6-7(14), 6-3 in two hours and 42 minutes. She missed six match points in the second set, including five in an epic tiebreak—the longest first-to-seven tour-level tiebreak since Palermo 2024. The American served a series of three double faults at 6-5 and another two at match point, before a third at 11-11 in the tiebreak, which led her to smash her racquet in frustration.
Despite the challenging second set, Baptiste regained her composure to set up a second meeting with Sabalenka, who she lost to 6-4, 6-4 in the quarter-finals in Miami last month.
Baptiste shared her thoughts on the tiebreak: “The tiebreak was insane. It was quite obvious that nerves got a bit in the way when I had some moments to close out the match, but that’s obviously a part of the game. I wasn’t able to get out of that tiebreak, but I was able to turn it around in the third set, so I can be happy about that. Super easy to just leave the match mentally after something like that.”
She also reflected on the missed match points: “Six match points? Outrageous. Having six chances — painful, very, very painful to not get out of that. Then you just start to think, is she going to turn this match around and have that victorious win? I think I told myself that I wasn’t going to allow that.”
