Aryna Sabalenka is one of the rising stars in the WTA tennis sky. At the WTA-Premier-5-Event in Wuhan the Belarusian will play against Ashleigh barty from Australia for the final.
When the big tennis quiz is called at the end of the year, the following question should not be missing: Which player was the only one who managed to take one set off Naomi Osaka at the US Open 2018? Small hint: The same player had come to New York with the recommendation to win the tournament in New Haven. And is now in the semi-finals of the WTA Premier 5 tournament in Wuhan.
There Aryna Sabalenka, the wanted lady, gets to deal with Ashleigh Barty. A semi-final of the future, of course. In a tournament of the category like Wuhan, however, the observers had rather expected one of the bigger names in the preliminary round. Angelique Kerber for instance (lost to Barty). Or at least Elina Svitolina (out against Sabalenka).
The Belarusian has won 18 of her last 22 matches and is ranked 20th in the WTA World Ranking with a clear tendency towards more. Coach Dmitry Tursunov has brought his protégé so far to bring her considerable power into more controlled channels. “Seeing the ball, hitting the ball” is still her motto, Sabalenka explained on the court after her quarter-final victory over Dominika Cibulkova.
At the beginning of the year Magnus Norman had also visited Sabalenka for a short time, and the Swede has been recognised as a luminary in the coaching business at least since his successful work with Stan Wawrinka.
Sabalenka is only 20 years old, she can play on all surfaces. In Eastbourne she defeated Julia Görges, Elise Mertens and Karolina Pliskova one after the other on grass, only losing to Caroline Wozniacki in the final. The fact that the high expectations in Wimbledon were not fulfilled was mainly due to an unfriendly draw: Mihaela Buzarnescu in round one, that’s no fun.
Since the tournament in Cincinnati, where Sabalenka was defeated by world number one Simona Halep, things have been going very well, with the exception of the defeat in Quebec City against Varvara Lepchenko.
The game in Wuhan against Barty could become the more difficult task in the rest of the tournament. In the other semi-final, Anett Kontaveit and local hero Qiang Wang will meet two outsiders.
Here the single tableau in Wuhan