Sabalenka beats Muchova for fifth straight FAGE WTA Finals opening win
INDIAN WELLS, Calif. -- Karolina Muchova came into Monday’s match with two records worth keeping. At 3-2 against Aryna Sabalenka, she was the only player in the FAGE WTA Finals field with a winning record against her. She’d also won every tiebreak she’d played this season.
Neither record survived Monday’s Group 2 opener at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, where Sabalenka won 7-6 (2), 7-5 in 1 hour and 53 minutes.
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The lead kept changing hands in the first set. Both players led by a break, and Muchova broke to go ahead twice, first at 3-2 and again at 5-4, when a forehand caught the baseline and skidded away from Sabalenka. Each time, Sabalenka broke right back. Muchova saved two set points as part of a four-point run to force a tiebreak, but two forehand misses, the last well beyond the baseline on set point, ended her unbeaten run. Sabalenka now leads the tour with 13 tiebreak wins this season.
Three straight breaks in the second set left Sabalenka ahead, and she held that edge until she served for the match at 5-4. A forehand sailed long to give Muchova the break for 5-5, but in the next game Sabalenka ripped an inside-out forehand that Muchova couldn’t get a racquet on. Given a second chance to serve out the match, Sabalenka held.
Sabalenka is now 11-0 at the WTA Finals when she wins the first set. Monday’s win was her 13th at the tournament, tying Mary Pierce for the most by a player who hasn’t won the title.
She has also won five straight WTA Finals openers since losing to Paula Badosa in her 2021 debut. That ties Simona Halep and Caroline Wozniacki for third most since round-robin play returned in 2003, behind Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams with six each. This is Sabalenka’s sixth consecutive appearance at the Finals, the longest such run since Agnieszka Radwanska played six straight from 2011 to 2016.
Muchova, who qualified in 2023 but withdrew with a wrist injury, made her tournament debut at 30. She’s the fourth player in the past 50 years to make her WTA Finals debut at 30 or older, joining Francesca Schiavone, Flavia Pennetta and Ekaterina Alexandrova.