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Belarus’ Aryna Sabalenka celebrates after winning her round of 16 match against Russia’s Ekaterina Alexandrova on\u00a0June 17, 2026.\u00a0\u2014 Reuters<\/p>\n
BERLIN: World number one Aryna Sabalenka staged a remarkable comeback to defeat Czech teenager Nikola Bartunkova 2-6, 7-6(2), 6-4 and secure a place in the semi-finals of the Berlin Open here at the Steffi Graf Stadion on Friday.<\/p>\n
The Belarusian appeared to be heading for an early exit after a difficult start, finding herself a set down and trailing 4-0 in the second set against the fearless Bartunkova, who dominated proceedings with a series of powerful winners.<\/p>\n
Sabalenka struggled to find her rhythm throughout the opening stages, committing a number of uncharacteristic errors and failing to make an impact on serve.<\/p>\n
The performance echoed her surprise quarter-final defeat at the French Open earlier this month, where questions were raised about her ability to recover from setbacks.<\/p>\n
However, the four-time Grand Slam champion showed her fighting qualities to turn the match around, eventually securing a hard-fought victory.<\/p>\n
Reflecting on the challenge posed by her young opponent, Sabalenka admitted she had been overwhelmed by Bartunkova\u2019s aggressive approach.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did not know what to do. I was thinking woah, that’s how it feels to play against me,\u201d Sabalenka said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny ball I would give her she would smack it for a winner. What a player – a future superstar for sure.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just tried to bring this little tiger inside of me and fight for this match.\u201d<\/p>\n
The victory provides a timely boost for Sabalenka ahead of Wimbledon, where she reached the semi-finals last year. <\/p>\n
She will now face world number four Jessica Pegula for a place in the final after the American defeated Madison Keys 7-6 (7-5), 7-6 (10-8).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Belarus’ Aryna Sabalenka celebrates after winning her round of 16 match against Russia’s Ekaterina Alexandrova on\u00a0June 17, 2026.\u00a0\u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[217,6763,2142,2265],"class_list":["post-21945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-aryna-sabalenka","tag-aryna-sabalenka","tag-berlin-open","tag-pegula","tag-sabalenka"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}