Aryna Sabalenka has been in North America for a while and has played competitive tennis, but her performance has been far from what many have come to expect from her.
The Belarusian's first-round opponent at the 2024 Cincinnati Open was Elisabetta Cocciaretto, who can trouble the best, but she wasn't the favorite in these circumstances.
Her best tennis generally comes on clay courts because hard courts leave her quite vulnerable. She doesn't have the most powerful serve, which can be a problem on hard courts, especially against a player like Sabalenka.
Her slower serve can be immediately attacked, and it's hard to come back from that in a rally. She also doesn't have that much power in her shots, which again can be a problem in today's tennis.
The World No. 3, on the other hand, is the total opposite of her profile-wise. She is considerably taller and possesses a much better serve and more power in her shots. On a court like the one in Cincinnati, that's a huge advantage, and she used it in the match.
Her form hasn't been that great in recent months. She won a couple of matches, both in Washington and Toronto, but overall, it's not the level we've come to expect from Sabalenka.
She can play far better, and that was the expectation in this match at the WTA 1000 event in Cincinnati. To do that, Sabalenka pointed to having a short memory and a good plan.
She certainly backed it up in this match because she wasn't really challenged by her opponent. A large part of that was simply the matchup, which was really unfavorable for the Italian, but Sabalenka also executed well.
She took it upon herself to be the more aggressive player. That wasn't a surprise, and it worked well. She didn't drop a single point behind her first serve in the opening set and generally lost only five points on her serve in the first set.
As a result, Cocciaretto wasn't able to create any break chances. On the serve of the Italian, Sabalenka did plenty of damage, but she also showed quite a bit of impatience. She used only one of the seven break points she had, mostly due to her not hitting some of those aggressive shots.
She had the same problem in Washington and Toronto. Usually, those chances are converted at a clinical rate, but she's lacking matches, so with more matches, that should become better and better.
It's that impatience that kept this match closer than it was purely on level or talent. Even with the impatience, Sabalenka could still break in the second set to take a 2-1 lead.
It was only a matter of time because the disparity in level was too huge. After losing her serve, Cocciaretto also took a medical time-out but continued the match.
Still, there wasn't any hope for a comeback, as she struggled physically while Sabalenka kept doing her own thing. She won the match in two sets 6-3, 6-4 to advance to the next round.