Osaka and Sabalenka to renew rivalry on clay in Madrid
Eight years lapsed between the first and second head-to-head meetings between Naomi Osaka and Aryna Sabalenka. Seven weeks is all it'll take for the two to have head-to-head showdown No. 3 on the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz.
Four-time Grand Slam singles champion Osaka and World No. 1 Sabalenka will have their first meeting away from hard courts in the Round of 16 of the Mutua Madrid Open after both scored easy third-round wins on Saturday. Sabalenka booked her spot in the fourth round first with a 6-1, 6-4 win over No. 28 seed Jaqueline Cristian, and Osaka followed suit with a 6-1, 6-3 win over former World No. 25 Anehlina Kalinina of Ukraine.
Sabalenka, a three-time champion in Madrid, looks to reach the quarterfinals or better in the Spanish capital for the fifth time in eight trips to the tournament while Osaka seeks to reach the last eight at the event for the first time since 2019. The winner of the match will also break a 1-1 head-to-head tie, as Sabalenka leveled her record against Osaka with a straight sets win in the fourth round of the BNP Paribas Open earlier this year.
"All of the matches we played ... it's only two of them, it [has] always been a great battle, great level of tennis, so I feel like it doesn't matter which surface we're going to play," Sabalenka said, expressing her excitement at the prospect of facing Osaka again after running her season-best winning streak to 14 straight matches.
Here's how they got there.
Sabalenka notches 25th win of season
Sabalenka also faced Cristian a round prior to facing Osaka in Indian Wells, a match she won 6-4, 6-1. The set scores were reversed in their clay-court meeting, but their were similar themes in the top seed's latest win -- a victory that improved her win-loss record this year to 25-1.
After the top seed rolled through the opener, Cristian played her close in the first games of the second set. Crucially, Sabalenka saved four break points in the sixth game of the set -- which would've seen Cristian lead 4-2 -- and won the last three games of the match.
"I'm super happy with the level, especially in the first set," Sabalenka confessed afterwards. "Second set, happy to hold my serve to close the match in straight sets. She brought really incredible fight, and [I'm] happy to be through."
Osaka scores back-to-back wins in Madrid for second time
Osaka needed to find a higher level in the second set of her 6-2, 7-5 second-round win against Camila Osorio, and was forced to do the same against former World No. 25 Kalinina in 1 hour and 16 minutes. She stormed out of the gates against the Ukrainian, and built a 6-1, 4-1 lead in under an hour. But Kalinina won back-to-back games to creep closer in the second set, before an emphatic love hold put Osaka on the doorstep of back-to-back wins.
A nine-deuce game on Kalinina's serve ended the match, as Osaka sealed victory on her fourth match point after Kalinina had six game points of her own to hold serve.
Osaka ended the match with 33 winners and 33 unforced errors. Kalinina hit just six winners.
Revisiting their last meeting
After beating Osaka 6-2, 6-4, in the fourth round of Indian Wells, Sabalenka said it was "insane" that the two hadn't played across eight previous seasons, and noted that her rise began primarily during Osaka's maternity leave after the 2023 birth of her daughter Shai.
"I changed a lot," Sabalenka said in March. "So many things happened to me, and I became a better player, better person, learned a lot about myself. I'm in better control over my emotions, I'm more experienced, I got some Grand Slams in my belt. It's just like I feel I'm completely different person right now from when we [last] played against each other."
"I feel like, pretty sure that we're gonna face each other many more times," she added, in a remark that proved prescient.
The winner will face either No. 11 seed Belinda Bencic or No. 30 seed Hailey Baptiste in the quarterfinals.