Baptiste saves six match points, upsets Sabalenka to reach Madrid semifinals

Hailey Baptiste had never beaten a Top 5 player. Now she has -- and she made sure it would be one to remember.

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The 24-year-old stunned World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka 2-6, 6-2, 7-6 (6) in 2 hours and 30 minutes Tuesday night, saving six match points to earn the biggest win of her career. She's the first player to beat Sabalenka from match points down since Iga Swiatek did so in the 2024 Madrid final. The victory also snaps Sabalenka's 15-match winning streak and sends Baptiste to the Madrid semifinals for the first time.

“I played her a few weeks ago and it was kind of a close match,” Baptiste said in her post-match press conference. “I just got broken once in each set. So I had a better idea of how to play her, and how I should play, adjustments I needed to make. So I think I just went in trying to play my game, still doing the same things that I've been doing, but I had a few adjustments I needed to make from the last time we played.”

It’s her first WTA 1000 semifinal, where she’ll face another Top 10 opponent in Mirra Andreeva. The No. 9 seed advanced earlier Tuesday with a straight-sets win over Leylah Fernandez to reach her first Madrid semifinal.

It will be a chance at a third Top 10 win this week for Baptiste, who defeated Jasmine Paolini in the third round before knocking off Sabalenka. She has doubled her career total of Top 10 wins at the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz level during this run, going from two to four.

But none are likely to surpass the win over Sabalenka, which caps a rapid rise for Baptiste. She entered the Mutua Madrid Open ranked No. 88 at this time last year and now has a Top 30 debut in sight.

It’s a ranking more befitting of the performance she produced Tuesday.

All things considered, it was a slow start from Baptiste. She quickly found herself down 4-1 as Sabalenka opened with a torrid serving stretch, winning 12 of her first 14 points on serve. She faced brief trouble in her next service game, saving two break points before holding for 5-2, then broke the American to take the first set in 37 minutes.

It was not a sign of things to come. Back-to-back double faults from Sabalenka handed Baptiste the break to open the second set.

“I feel like in Miami I didn't give her many opportunities,” Sabalenka said in her post-match press conference. “She couldn't break my serve. Here, the first game, second set, I just double-faulted twice out of nowhere. It felt like that gave her belief. After that, she just started playing more aggressively. She was playing brave tennis. What can I say? Well done.”

Baptiste used that opening as a foothold into the match. Moments later she led 4-0 and held a break point for 5-0. Sabalenka saved it, held, and then broke back, converting her fifth chance in a game filled with forehand winners, backhand winners and even a drop shot or two as she tried to disrupt Baptiste’s rhythm.

It didn’t work.

Baptiste responded immediately, running around her backhand to fire a forehand return winner for the break, then striking another forehand winner in the next game to force a decider.

And what a decider it was. Sabalenka broke first for 2-0. Baptiste broke back and led 4-3. Sabalenka broke again and served for the match at 5-4, earning five match points.

Baptiste’s response? She pulled out everything she had. She saved the first with an ace. She saved another with a serve-and-volley. Then came the drop-shot lob over Sabalenka’s head on match point No. 5. Pure chaos, capped by a nifty backhand winner to hold for 5-5.

A crosscourt forehand winner to open the next game -- one of many -- was well-struck. Baptiste earned a break point with a backhand winner, lost it, then produced arguably the shot of the match: a scrambling get from well outside the court that she somehow turned into a forehand winner for another chance. Sabalenka’s next forehand misfired, and Baptiste stepped up to serve for the match.

“I wouldn't say that I'm necessarily working on hitting balls outside the alley,” Baptiste said. “But obviously when you're playing points all the time you get into those positions. I actually really enjoy being in those positions, because I feel like I can create shots there. I was able to do it in a really big moment. I think that she was maybe a little frightened by that. I know I would be if somebody came up with that in that moment.”

The shock was short-lived, as Sabalenka broke back to force a tiebreak.

Sabalenka held her sixth and final match point at 6-5 in the breaker, but Baptiste saved it, won the next three points and converted her lone match point to seal the upset.

In the process, she:

• Became the second American to defeat the World No. 1 in Madrid, after Serena Williams beat Victoria Azarenka in the 2012 final.
• Became the lowest-ranked player (No. 32) to score a comeback win over the World No. 1 since Yulia Putintseva at Wimbledon 2024 against Swiatek.
• Became the lowest-ranked player to earn a comeback win on clay against the World No. 1 in the last 40 years.
• Claimed her ninth WTA 1000 main-draw win of 2026, already a career-high for a single season.
• Broke Sabalenka six times -- the most by any opponent this season -- and served 12 aces, the most in a single WTA-level clay-court match against Sabalenka in her career.

Baptiste will face Andreeva next, who holds a 1-0 head-to-head advantage after a 6-1, 6-3 win at Wimbledon last year.

“Somebody else that I played before and lost to,” Baptiste said. “A little bit of a revenge tour, I guess. I’m looking to go out there and play my game again and get another win.”

On the other side of the net, the 15-match winning streak matched the best of Sabalenka's career, and its end also marked the first time Sabalenka has lost after winning the first set since last fall, when she fell to Jessica Pegula in the Wuhan semifinals.

She drops to 44-2 after winning the first set since last year's Roland Garros final and is now 26-2 overall this season, with losses to Baptiste and Elena Rybakina.