Australian Open 2023 Results: Instant Reactions to Winners and Losers from Thursday
Elena Rybakina and Aryna Sabalenka extended their straight-set victory runs at the 2023 Australian Open on Thursday to reach the women's singles final.
Rybakina won her third straight two-set match, and fifth of the tournament, as she downed two-time Aussie Open champion Victoria Azarenka.
Sabalenka has won every match in Melbourne by straight sets. She rolled into her first-ever Grand Slam final with a win over the unseeded Magda Linette.
The two players will meet for the fourth time in their careers in Saturday's final. Sabalenka owns a 3-0 head-to-head record over Rybakina, with one of those wins coming at Wimbledon in 2021.
Rybakina holds the edge in major final experience from her Wimbledon triumph last season, but Sabalenka has been strong on hard courts in both Melbourne and New York over the last three seasons.
Thursday Results
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Women's Semifinals
No. 5 Aryna Sabalenka def. Magda Linette, 7-6 (1), 6-2
No. 22 Elena Rybakina def. No. 24 Victoria Azarenka, 7-6 (4), 6-3
Elena Rybakina into Second Grand Slam Final in Three Majors
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Elena Rybakina proved that her triumph at Wimbledon last summer was not just a flash in the pan.
The No. 22 seed has had a fantastic tournament that can be capped by her second Grand Slam title in three majors on Saturday.
Rybakina took care of Victoria Azarenka on Thursday to another previous major champion to her list of defeated opponents.
Azarenka took Rybakina to a first-set tiebreak, but after the No. 24 seed failed to win the opening set, she fell into a deficit she could not make up.
Rybakina won three of the first four games of the second set after her tiebreak win to shift all of the momentum in her favor.
That four-game swing showed how quickly Rybakina is capable of pouncing on even the smallest dip in her opponent's play. A stretch like that could be the deciding factor in the final against a player that has not dropped a set in Melbourne.
The 23-year-old should be more than prepared for the final. She ran through a tough four-match stretch against last year's runner-up in Melbourne, Danielle Collins, and then a trio of major winners in Iga Swiatek, Jelena Ostapenko and Azarenka.
Rybakina has already established herself as a candidate to make deep runs at each major this season with her string of results in Melbourne.
If she wins on Saturday, Rybakina can start a significant run toward the top of the WTA rankings, where she might have already been if rankings points were handed out for Wimbledon in 2022.
Aryna Sabalenka Reaches First Grand Slam Final
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Aryna Sabalenka has been waiting for the moment she experienced on Thursday for quite some time.
The fifth-seeded woman was eliminated in the semifinal stage at three majors in the last two seasons.
The 24-year-old was starting to build a case to be the best player on the women's tour to never reach a Grand Slam final, but that can be put to rest after her sixth straight two-set win in Melbourne.
Sabalenka has been the most dominant player on the Australian hard courts, and she will try to enforce that same level of play on Rybakina.
The 3-0 record over the No. 22 seed can give Sabalenka an extra boost of confidence to help deal with the nerves that naturally come with a maiden Grand Slam final appearance.
Sabalenka needs a strong start on Saturday to ease those nerves and gain some sort of edge on Rybakina, which has been difficult to do over the last week-and-a-half.
Sabalenka enters Saturday as the higher seed, but some experts may predict that Rybakina is the favorite because her No. 22 ranking is not indicative of the play in two of the last three majors.
The one thing going for Sabalenka is she has been the most consistent player at hard court majors since 2021. She is a three-time hard-court major semifinalist and her comfortability on the surface should help her settle into the match and challenge for her first Grand Slam title.
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