Sabalenka Stops Emerging Madrid Upset Champion-Worthy Comeback

| by Balasz Virag

Aryna Sabalenka will be playing in the 2023 Madrid Open semifinals after beating Mayar Sherif from Egypt.

In the first, and only one of two, WTA match of the day, the second-seeded Belarusian took on one of the biggest surprises of the tournament, the 59th-ranked Mayar Sherif, who made her first quarterfinal appearance at an WTA 1000 event.

The two took to the Manolo Santana Stadium after Karen Khachanov defeated Andrey Rublev in an ATP match earlier. Sabalenka and Sherif never met before and so it was their first meeting on the WTA Tour, and they were playing for a lot.

Only four players advance to the semifinals and both wanted to be one of them. And surprisingly, it was the Egyptian who started better, getting the first break and eventually having all of the break points in the first set.

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Sherif had six chances to break her opponent and even though she used only two, it was enough to beat the second seed 6-2 as she lost only three points on her own serve. But that changed in the second set as she lost her first service game to love, after breaking in the opening game.

With the score at one game each in the second set, Sherif managed to break her opponent once more, but for a very long time, that would be her last game won. She started to struggle on her serve while Sabalenka, who was coming off a win against 16-year-old Mirra Andreeva, stopped missing.

The Belarusian won 10 consecutive games and in a span of a few minutes, Sherif went from being close to reaching the Madrid Open semifinals to being one game away from losing in the quarterfinals.

But she still showed her fighting spirit, winning one game in the second set, before Sabalenka closed out the match, winning 2-6, 6-2, 6-1 in two hours and three minutes to book her semifinal spot.

Up next, the most recent Grand Slam champion will wait for the winner of the match between the ninth-seeded Maria Sakkari and the 31st-seeded Irina-Camelia Begu, who are set to meet later on the day.

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