Aryna Sabalenka passed one of her sternest tests yet in her pursuit of a maiden French Open crown on Monday, overpowering Naomi Osaka 7-5 \u200b6-3 in a pulsating duel to power into the quarter-finals of the claycourt Grand Slam.<\/p>\n
Playing in the first women\u2019s night-session match at Roland Garros in three years, \u200cthe Belarusian recovered from a ragged opening to extend her remarkable consistency at majors, where she has reached at least the quarter-finals in her last 14 appearances.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe is such a great player, she plays super aggressive tennis,\u201d Sabalenka said on court before delighting the crowd by showing off a playful moonwalk. \u201cI\u2019m happy with how I was able to put back the pressure on her. It\u2019s amazing to play the night session in front of all \u200bof you guys.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m super happy with my serve. I\u2019m super pleased overall with the performance today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Osaka, playing in the fourth round of the French Open for the first time, \u200bexploded out of the blocks and raced into a 2-0 lead after a Sabalenka double fault.<\/p>\n
The world number one responded immediately, hammering her way \u2060back into the contest with the kind of relentless power that has made her the dominant force in women\u2019s tennis this season.<\/p>\n
At 5-5 in the opening set, Sabalenka landed the first \u200bmajor blow, crushing a vicious return at Osaka\u2019s feet to snatch the break as the Japanese player dumped a backhand into the net.<\/p>\n
In the second set, Sabalenka\u2019s weight of shot gradually suffocated Osaka. \u200bAfter surviving a grinding service game to level at 3-3, she produced a feather-soft half-volley winner at the end of a punishing rally to break for 4-3 and seize complete control.<\/p>\n
She next takes on Russia’s Diana Shnaider, who shrugged off a second set blip to overcome American Madison Keys 6-3 3-6 6-0 in another stunning upset of a major champion at the claycourt Grand Slam this year.<\/p>\n
Anna Kalinskaya also continued her journey into a maiden \u200bFrench Open quarter-final with a 6-4 2-6 7-6(7) win over 28th seed Anastasia Potapova, marking only the second time that the Russian has entered that stage of a Grand Slam.<\/p>\n
\u2014Reuters\u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":21159,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-36037","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"In the second set, Sabalenka\u2019s weight of shot gradually suffocated Osaka.","published_date":"","news_description":"In the second set, Sabalenka\u2019s weight of shot gradually suffocated Osaka.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36039,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36037\/revisions\/36039"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=36037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}