dpAryna Sabalenka faced a far tougher test Thursday night than her 6-3, 6-4 win over Zhang Shuai in 1 hour and 16 minutes suggests.
Toronto: Scores | Order of play | Draws
While the World No. 1 never appeared in real danger of an upset, Zhang kept her under pressure throughout. Sabalenka even stared down a break point in the final game before wiping it away and taking the last three points to close out the win in straight sets.
“That was definitely tricky. She played great,” Sabalenka said in her on-court interview. “It was tough to face when you want to finish the match and go rest. And you know there was the break point. Of course, that’s definitely not easy, and I’m happy that I managed to stay focused and managed to close this match in straight sets.”
With the win, Sabalenka improved to 25-1 on hard courts this season, her lone loss on the surface coming in the Australian Open final. She’s the fastest player to reach 25 hard-court wins in a season since Serena Williams in 2016. She’s also now 5-1 against Zhang at the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz level, winning their last five meetings — all in straight sets.
This latest encounter was a battle of contrasting styles, and while the scoreline didn’t tell the whole tale, the stat sheet did a decent job painting the picture.
Despite the loss, Zhang finished with just one unforced error — yes, one — in 76 minutes, along with eight winners. Sabalenka, meanwhile, piled up 14 times as many unforced errors but countered with 29 winners to counter Zhang’s conservative approach.
Zhang’s measured play carried over to her serve, where she landed more first serves — 66% to Sabalenka’s 60% — but Sabalenka dominated the first-serve points, winning 81% of hers to Zhang’s 62%. That gap, along with Sabalenka’s edge on clutch points — converting two of three break chances while Zhang went 0-for-2 — proved decisive.
The timing of Sabalenka’s breaks mattered, too. The first came at 4-2 off a forehand return winner, just seconds before the second of two mini rain delays — this one lasting 12 minutes — disrupted the opening set. The second break came at 4-3 in the second set, again off a forehand winner.
Two games later, Sabalenka fought off Zhang’s last-ditch effort with yet another forehand winner, then produced a superb volley to cap the point of the night and set up match point, which she converted to send herself into the fourth round.
There she’ll face No. 16 seed Ekaterina Alexandrova, a matchup tighter than the seeding suggests. Sabalenka holds a narrow 5-4 edge in their head-to-head, but she has won three of the last four, including their most recent meeting in Berlin in June.
