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MELBOURNE, Australia — Aryna Sabalenka has advanced to the quarterfinals at the Australian Open, where she’s three wins from achieving something no woman has done since the 1990s.
The two-time defending champion extended her winning streak at Melbourne Park to 18 matches with a 6-1, 6-2 win over 14th-seeded Mirra Andreeva to open play Sunday on Rod Laver Arena.
Martina Hingis, from 1997 to 1999, was the last woman to win three straight Australian Open singles titles.
Sabalenka hugged Andreeva after the match, waved to the crowd, took a photo with her instant camera and gave a thumbs up to mark the occasion.
“It’s just a nice moment. I really like to see all of those pictures. I started from the preseason, and it’s so cute to see these little moments,” she said. “Other than that, I don’t know, I just want to improve myself every day, get better as a player, as a person, and capture great moments.”
She’s won 24 consecutive sets in Melbourne.
“I’m super happy to get through this difficult match in straight sets,” she said of the 62-minute win. “Mirra is so young, so mature, such a great player. Yeah, she can play really great tennis.”
Apart from the fifth game of the second set, when Sabalenka had triple breakpoint but Andreeva rallied by winning five straight points to hold, just about everything went the way of the No. 1-ranked player.
Sabalenka didn’t face a break point until midway through the second set, when she saved three in one game. It seemed like she was testing her serve under pressure against a player she also beat en route to the title in Brisbane earlier this month.
No. 3 Coco Gauff, who has won all 16 sets she’s played this year, was playing Tokyo Olympic champion Belinda Bencic in the second match on Rod Laver on Day 8.
On the men’s side, No. 3 Carlos Alcaraz was playing Jack Draper in the afternoon and Novak Djokovic was continuing his quest for a record 25th Grand Slam singles title in a night match against Jiri Lehecka.