No one is playing better tennis right now than World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka.
She powered past No. 16 seed Naomi Osaka 6-2, 6-4 on Tuesday, claiming a spot in the quarterfinals of the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells.
The serve, the groundstrokes, the competitive drive and the touch are all there right now for the 27-year-old who has been in five of the last six Grand Slam finals. She has never won this tournament, though, but all signs are pointing in that direction this year as she now has three consecutive straight-set wins.
She’s got all that power, and she’s mixing in some trickiness? That’s just unfair.
“Yeah, I’m super happy with the performance today, the way I brought variety on court, that I made her guess most of the times, and of course happy with the serves, so I felt like it was a great performance for me,” Sabalenka said.
Making a veteran like Osaka guess? How do you do that?
“I was trying to change the rhythm and make sure that the ball comes back on her side different heights and speeds. So I think that was the key of the match,” Sabalenka said during her press conference after the match with her new dog Ash on her lap.
That’s all well and good, but I doubt that actually worked on Osaka, the 2018 BNP Paribas Open and U.S. Open champ.
“I feel like I was a little, like, flat-footed sometimes, because I expected the ball to be coming harder but then it didn’t. She grunts the same way for every ball. I was, like, ‘Oh, my God, she tricked me (smiling),'” Osaka said. “No, it was a cool learning experience. I know we haven’t played for a long time, so I hope that we can play again sometime soon.”
Apologies to Sabalenka, I stand corrected.
And Osaka, the 2018 champion in Indian Wells, wasn’t playing poorly in this one, it was just too much Sabalenka, particularly from the service line. The world No. 1 won three of the four points in the climactic game with unreturnable serves, just as Osaka was putting the pressure on.
The newly engaged Sabalenka will face Victoria Mboko of Canada next. The 10th-seeded Mboko took down No. 6 Amanda Anisimova 6-4, 6-1 on Tuesday night.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Sabalenka gets tricky to beat Osaka, into Indian Wells quarterfinal
Reporting by Shad Powers, Palm Springs Desert Sun / Palm Springs Desert Sun
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
