Hailey Baptiste upset World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka and did so in dramatic fashion, saving six match points en route to a 2-6, 6-2, 7-6 (6) victory in the quarterfinals of the Madrid Open on Tuesday.
The 30th-seeded Baptiste earned the first top-five victory of her young career by handing Sabalenka only her second loss of the season. The Belarusian saw a 15-match win streak come to a halt.
Baptiste, a 24-year-old from Washington, D.C., advanced to the semifinals of a WTA 1000 event for the first time after reaching the Miami Open quarterfinals last month — where she fell to Sabalenka.
“It just shows me where my game was. I’ve always believed it, and I feel like now I’m starting to put it into action and the world is seeing it as well,” Baptiste told Tennis Channel in a post-match interview.
Five of Baptiste’s six saved match points came during a marathon 10th game in the third set. Up 5-4, Sabalenka raced out to a 40-15 lead and had double match point. But it was Baptiste’s service game, and she fired an ace past Sabalenka before another big serve led to a Sabalenka shot in the net.
Sabalenka soon earned three advantages in a row, only for Baptiste to counter all three.
In the tiebreaker, Sabalenka squeaked ahead 6-5 but Baptiste saved match point No. 6 and won two more points from there to finish off the upset.
“I definitely had a lot of nerves, but I had 28 chances yesterday and I didn’t get it done,” Baptiste said, referring to Monday’s marathon win in which Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic saved six of Baptiste’s match points.
“I was able to get it on the first one, and I told my team, when I get my match point today, I’m going to win the first one that I get.”
Baptiste finished with 12 aces and saved 11 of 17 break points, while Sabalenka saved 8 of 14 break points and won exactly one fewer point than her opponent. Sabalenka had won the Sunshine Double (Indian Wells, Miami) plus her first three matches of the Madrid Open.
Baptiste’s next challenge will be a match against No. 9 seed Mirra Andreeva of Russia. In the only other match on Tuesday’s slate, Andreeva defeated Canadian 24th seed Leylah Fernandez 7-6 (1), 6-3.
On the day before her 19th birthday, Andreeva advanced to the semifinals of a WTA 1000 event for the first time since her victories at Dubai and Indian Wells last year.
“I’m so happy I cannot take the smile away from my face,” Andreeva said. “I’m extremely happy about the way I played and the result. It wouldn’t be a perfect birthday if I would lose today. I really didn’t want that to happen, and I was trying to give everything I had to be in a good mood tomorrow.”
Andreeva saved 12 of 15 break points while benefiting from Fernandez’s five double faults without an ace.
–Field Level Media
