{"id":69637,"date":"2024-03-10T14:35:03","date_gmt":"2024-03-10T14:35:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/sabalenka-saves-four-match-points-to-win-indian-wells-opener-the-express-tribune\/"},"modified":"2024-03-10T14:35:03","modified_gmt":"2024-03-10T14:35:03","slug":"sabalenka-saves-four-match-points-to-win-indian-wells-opener-the-express-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/sabalenka-saves-four-match-points-to-win-indian-wells-opener-the-express-tribune\/","title":{"rendered":"Sabalenka saves four match points to win Indian Wells opener | The Express Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\nINDIAN WELLS:
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka<\/a> saved four match points and needed four of her own to earn a 6-7 (2\/7), 6-2, 7-6 (8\/6) victory over Payton Stearns on Saturday at the Indian Wells Masters.<\/p>\n

The world number two was pushed to the limit in her opening match by the American outsider ranked 64th.<\/p>\n

The match became a struggle from the start for Sabalenka, who was coming off an opening match loss in Dubai in February.<\/p>\n

But she broke Stearns as the American served for the biggest upset of her career leading 5-4 in the third set, and taking a 40-0 lead.<\/p>\n

Sabalenka saved one match point with a stinging backhand winner and Stearns began to tighten up, Sabalenka breaking for 5-5.<\/p>\n

Stearns would break Sabakenka again but couldn’t serve it out and Sabalenka prevailed in the tiebreaker.<\/p>\n

The double Grand Slam winner finally advanced into the third round on her fourth opportunity, letting out a yell of triumph and relief.<\/p>\n

“This match will definitely go into the book of craziest matches and the best matches of my career,” she said.<\/p>\n

Sabalenka also rolled her ankle during the intense evening struggle but said she will be ready for her next match.<\/p>\n

“I was trying (after the injury), I was trying so hard to get to every ball and to put every ball back.<\/p>\n

“Now I feel OK, we’ll see tomorrow. But I have a great team, and I’m pretty sure they will take care of it so for the next match I will be ready.”<\/p>\n

She added: “I’m super happy that I didn’t give up on that score, and I was really pushing myself hard.<\/p>\n

“Even though I didn’t play my best tennis and she was crushing it like crazy, I was trying to stay in the game and keep fighting for every point.”<\/p>\n

Sabalenka, runner-up to Elena Rybakina in the California desert last year, booked a third-round meeting with 2021 US Open champion Emma Raducanu of Britain.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

INDIAN WELLS: Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka saved four match points and needed four of her own to earn a 6-7 (2\/7), 6-2, 7-6 (8\/6) victory over Payton Stearns on Saturday at the Indian Wells Masters. The world number two was pushed to the limit in her opening match by the American outsider ranked 64th. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.tribune.com.pk\/media\/images\/saba1710066995-0\/saba1710066995-0.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}