Aryna Sabalenka defend Australian Open title, hammers Qinwen Zheng in straight sets

Aryna Sabalenka successfully defended her Australian Open women’s singles title after beating China’s Qinwen Zheng 6-3, 6-2 in the final at the Rod Laver Arena. It took the Belarusian only an hour and 16 minutes to ease past her Chinese opponent.

Last year, Sabalenka had to fight hard against Kazakhstan’s Elena Rybakina when she had to rally back after losing the first set. But against Zheng, Sabalenka was on top of her game and hardly gave her opponent any breathing space.

For Zheng, it was a historic moment, as she had become the first Chinese player in 10 years since Li Na to take part in a Grand Slam singles final. The 21-year-old will also make her debut in the top 10 when the new rankings come out.

In the first set, Sabalenka earned an early break to put Zheng under pressure. At 40-0 in the third game, Zheng had a golden chance to earn the break back. Not only did Sabalenka save the break points, but won five points in a row to hold her serve.

At 2-5, Sabalenka earned two set points, one of which was saved by Zheng with a scorching forehand down the line. But the World No.2 kept her calm to close out the set without having to break a sweat.

In the second set, Sabalenka earned an early break to take a 1-0 lead. The Belarusian kept exerting pressure on her opponent with another service break. However, Zheng was in no mood to give up easily. At 2-5 in the second set, Sabalenka got 3 championship points, but Zheng saved all of them to take the game into deuce.

Zheng saved 1 more championship point before Sabalenka eventually pulled the curtains down on the match.

Zheng was impressive in patches, but was let down by her second serves, which fetched her only 38 percent of the points (9 out of 24). She also made 6 double faults and that made life tougher for her. She churned out 6 aces, but they were not enough to put Sabalenka under the cosh. 

Zheng pulled off 19 winners, 5 more than her opponent. Sabalenka was stupendous with her first serves, winning 84 percent points (32 out of 38) from them.

It was always going to be tough for Zheng to beat a player of Sabalenka’s class. Sabalenka finished her title defence by not dropping a single set.