Aryna Sabalenka secured a hard-fought victory over best friend Paula Badosa at the French Open on Saturday, while Elena Rybakina joined her in the fourth round.
Sabalenka and Spaniard Badosa have enjoyed a strong bond since 2021 but there was no quarter given as the world No 2 kept alive her hopes of a maiden Roland Garros title with a 7-5 6-1 victory.
Sabalenka came close to dropping her first set of the tournament. Badosa broke serve three times in the opener to lead 5-3 before Sabalenka stormed back to win four games in a row, going on to power past her opponent in the second set.
“It’s tough to play your best friend,” two-time Australian Open champion Sabalenka said during her on-court interview. “She’s an incredible player, coming back after injury, and I’m pretty sure she’s going to be back on top very soon. It’s very tough, but we’re good to separate things.
“On court… I’m trying not to watch the other side, just to focus on myself and bring my best game.”
Sabalenka produced a superb drop to set up match point and the knockout blow came in the form of an unforced error from the racket of the unseeded Badosa, but was quickly followed by a warm hug at the net.
“Some days it’s actually getting more complicated to play,” Sabalenka said of the variety in her game.
“You have so many options, you’re thinking too much but today was a day where I wasn’t thinking that much, I was just feeling the game and I was trusting myself and just was going for all the shots.”
Sabalenka, who is bidding to become the first player since Serena Williams in 2015 to claim the Australian Open and Roland Garros titles in the same season, next faces American 14th seed Madison Keys or 22nd seed Emma Navarro.
Rybakina eases past Belgium’s Mertens
World No 4 Elena Rybakina continued to fly under the radar as she enjoyed a routine 6-4 6-2 win over Belgium’s Elise Mertens to ease into the fourth round.
Rybakina, a former Wimbledon champion, is looking to improve on her best performance of quarter-finalist on the Paris red clay, in 2021.
The Russian-born Kazakh lost her serve twice in the first set but maintained the upper hand by breaking all of the Belgian’s remaining serves in the set.
Strong shots and better serving in the second set allowed the 24-year-old Rybakina to end the match in little over an hour.
“In the second set I was playing with a bit more confidence and my serve improved,” Rybakina said.
Gracheva serenaded by local fans with national anthem
French fans gave a loud rendition of the national anthem “La Marseillaise” for Varvara Gracheva after the Russian-born player beat Romania’s Irina-Camelia Begu in her first Roland Garros as a local since switching nationality last year.
Gracheva closed out a hard-fought 7-5 6-3 victory and joined in the singing as she celebrated being the last Frenchwoman left in the women’s draw.
“I will remember this moment until the end of my life,” said Gracheva, who received her French passport in 2023 after living in the country for more than five years. “It means that everyone accepts me, that I’m home here.”
Ranked 39 at the start of the year, her best career ranking, Gracheva fell to 100th place in April after six consecutive tournaments where she was eliminated in the first round.
“At the start of the year I was in some despair, I was very frustrated,” she said. “If someone had told me that I would be playing on the Suzanne Lenglen I wouldn’t have believed it,” she said with a big smile.
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