{"id":8806,"date":"2024-03-11T12:47:25","date_gmt":"2024-03-11T12:47:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theasiantelegraph.global\/?p=8806"},"modified":"2024-03-11T12:47:26","modified_gmt":"2024-03-11T12:47:26","slug":"australian-champion-sabalenka-staves-off-four-match-points-to-secure-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theasiantelegraph.global\/?p=8806","title":{"rendered":"Australian champion, Sabalenka staves off four match points to secure victory"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"750\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/theasiantelegraph.global\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Sabalenka-saves-four-match-points-to-win-Indian-Wells-opener-750x375-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8807\" srcset=\"https:\/\/theasiantelegraph.global\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Sabalenka-saves-four-match-points-to-win-Indian-Wells-opener-750x375-1.jpg 750w, https:\/\/theasiantelegraph.global\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Sabalenka-saves-four-match-points-to-win-Indian-Wells-opener-750x375-1-300x150.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>INDIAN WELLS: Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka saved four match points and needed four of her own to beat Payton Stearns 6-7 (2\/7), 6-2, 7-6 (8\/6). Indian Wells Champions.In her opening match, the world number two was pushed to the limit by the American outsider ranked 64th.The match became a struggle from the start for Sabalenkova, who lost the opening match in Dubai in February.But she broke Stearns as the American served for the biggest upset of her career, leading 5-4 in the third set to go 40-0 up.Sabalenka saved one match point with a stinging backhand winner and Stearns started to tighten, Sabalenka broke at 5-5.Stearns would break Sabakenka again but was unable to serve and Sabalenkova prevailed in the tiebreak.The two-time Grand Slam winner finally advanced to the third round on her fourth occasion and let out a cry of triumph and relief.\u201cThis match will definitely go down in the book of craziest matches and best matches of my career,\u201d she said.Sabalenkova also rolled her ankle during the evening\u2019s intense match, but said she will be ready for the next match.\u201cI tried (after the injury), I tried so hard to get to every ball and put every ball back.\u201cI feel good now, we\u2019ll see tomorrow. But I have a great team and I\u2019m pretty sure they\u2019ll take care of it, so I\u2019ll be ready for the next game.\u201dShe added: \u201cI\u2019m very happy that I didn\u2019t give up and really pushed myself hard.\u201cEven though I wasn\u2019t playing my best tennis and she was crushing it like crazy, I tried to stay in the game and fight for every point.Sabalenkova, last year\u2019s runner-up to Elena Rybakin in the California desert, has booked a third-round meeting with 2021 US Open champion Emma Raducanu of Britain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>INDIAN WELLS: Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka saved four match points and needed four of her own to beat Payton Stearns 6-7 (2\/7), 6-2, 7-6 (8\/6). Indian Wells Champions.In her&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":8807,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theasiantelegraph.global\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theasiantelegraph.global\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theasiantelegraph.global\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theasiantelegraph.global\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theasiantelegraph.global\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8806"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theasiantelegraph.global\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8808,"href":"https:\/\/theasiantelegraph.global\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8806\/revisions\/8808"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theasiantelegraph.global\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theasiantelegraph.global\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theasiantelegraph.global\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theasiantelegraph.global\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}