Sabalenka overpowers Swiatek to reach Cincinnati final

Aryna Sabalenka scored a dominant 6-3, 6-3 victory over Iga Swiatek in the semi-finals of the Western & Southern Open on Sunday afternoon. Sabalenka completely abused Swiatek’s second serve and broke five times while advancing in one hour and 47 minutes.

The Belarusian will battle either Jessica Pegula or Paula Badosa for the title on Monday.

SWIATEK SAVES NINE MATCH POINTS

It was entirely one-way traffic for Sabalenka for much of the way. After taking the first set, the 26-year-old raced to a 5-1 advantage in the second. It seemed to be all but over for Swiatek when she found herself serving down triple-match point.

Swiatek survived a 12-minute service game at 1-5 in which she saved a whopping seven match points, including three in a row from 0-40 down. Things continued to get trickier for Sabalenka when she failed to serve it out at 5-2 and squandered two more match points in the process. She was broken on her first double-fault of the entire afternoon.

“That was definitely the toughest moment of the match,” Sabalenka said in an interview with the Tennis Channel. “I just told myself, ‘come on, she’s world No 1; of course she’s going to fight back.”

Nonetheless, all of that only delayed the inevitable. It finally ended in extremely appropriate fashion, with Sabalenka destroying a second-serve return winner to covert her 10th match point.

The world No 3 won an amazing 24 of 30 second-serve return points.

HEALTHY SABALENKA ONE WIN FROM FIRST TITLE SINCE AUSTRALIAN OPEN

This match has to be one of the highlights of what has been an up-and-down 2024 campaign for Sabalenka. She won the Australian Open but missed multiple championship points in a Madrid loss to Swiatek and then was upset by Mirra Andreeva in the Roland-Garros quarter-finals. Sabalenka missed Wimbledon due to a shoulder injury and was also absent from the Paris Olympics.

Now she is back in business and will move up to No 2 in the world regardless of Sunday’s result.

“I’m really happy to see myself at such a high level,” Sabalenka assured.

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