Sunday, August 18, 2024

We have finalists in Cincinnati!

A relaxed and good-humored Aryna Sabalenka talked with the media this afternoon after her straight-sets victory over top seed Iga Swiatek. (She was also a bit breathless after climbing all those stairs,
something to which we could all relate.) She was asked what she thought was different in Cincinnati from the tournaments in DC and Toronto, and she immediately referred to her shoulder injury:

"... for the first time, I experienced something like fear, having a fear of getting injured again. That was kind of like tricky in those two tournaments. I was kind of like, over-protecting my shoulder. I didn't want to straighten my arm that far. I was...kind of like trying to keep it close. You know, it was, like, tricky. I was kind of like, fighting with...with my head, obviously."

Sabalenka said that she did a lot of rehab and a lot of exercises, and her team told her that she was fine, that she wasn't going to re-injure it, and in Cincinnati, that reality finally "clicked." 

It clicked emphatically in her match against Swiatek, whose service game and forehand were not always up to the task at hand. The world number 1 had first and second serve win stats of 67.5 and 20, as she failed to win a point on 24 of her 30 second serves. Sabalenka, for her part, hit five aces, and broke her opponent five times. In four tries, this is the Belarusian's first time to reach the final in Cincinnati. It's also her first time to defeat Swiatek in straight sets.

But the 6-3, 6-3 scoreline doesn't begin to tell the whole story. There was a brief rain delay, and there was also intense drama in the last half hour of the match. Down 1-5 in the second set, Swiatek saved seven match points on her own serve. Then Sabalenka found herself down 0-40, but worked her way toward having two more match points, which Swiatek also saved. Sabalenka then double-faulted, and things became quite interesting; however, the 3rd seed was able to win on her tenth match point

Swiatek said, "I didn't serve well at the beginning, which kind of, like threw me off my rhythm. And, yeah, for sure, it wasn't a good performance for me." She said that she made some mistakes, and that she made them throughout the match. 

When asked how she planned to mentally re-set, Swiatek said, "Oh, every match is different, but I'm not going to, like, do much drama today." She went on to say that she felt that she had used up her quota of tears after the Olympics, and she was happy with her results in Cincinnati.

The second semifinal had its share of drama, too, brought about by the weather. Jessica Pegula and Paula Badosa had to deal with a mid-match rain delay. Badosa had played a a night match on Saturday, and Pegula had played a windy three-hour match yesterday afternoon. Pegula, who won the Toronto title before coming to Cincinnati, was on an eight-match win streak coming into today's semifinals.

Pegula won the first set, 6-2, and Badosa took the second set, 6-3. Had Badosa won this match, there would have been an extra element of drama in the final, since she and Sabalenka are very close friends. However, Pegula's 6-3 victory in the third set put her into her first Cincinnati final. 

Sabalenka is 4-2 against Pegula overall, but 1-2 against her on hard courts, with one of those victories coming in Cincinnati in 2020. Pegula attributed her ability to compete so well with Sabalenka to the fact that she takes the ball very quickly and can often prevent Sabalenka from setting up her shots. She acknowledged, however, that Sabalenka can also take the ball very quickly, so that makes their hard court match-up quite competitive.

Pegula went on to say that--as hard as Sabalenka hits--in today's semifinal, Badosa had hit the ball harder than anyone she had ever played.

Evonne Goolagong is the only woman who has won Toronto/Montreal and Cincinnati back-to-back, and that happened 51 years ago. Pegula talked about this phenomenon in press yesterday, explaining that the weather conditions in the two areas are very different, and also, it isn't an easy trip, going from Canada to Ohio.

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