Karolina Muchova snapped No. 1 seed Aryna Sabalenka’s 15-match winning streak with a 7-6 (5), 2-6, 6-4 victory in the quarterfinals of the China Open on Friday in Beijing.
With her win in 2 hours and 46 minutes, the unseeded Czech advanced to the semifinals of the WTA 1000 event to face home favorite and No. 5 seed Qinwen Zheng.
Sabalenka, the reigning Australian Open and U.S. Open champion, had not lost since the Toronto quarterfinals in early August. The Belarusian star has now lost three consecutive meetings with Muchova, who is competing in her seventh tournament since wrist surgery.
“Tennis is a rollercoaster,” Muchova said in her on-court interview after a back-and-forth battle in which she trailed 4-2 in the deciding set before sweeping the last four games.
Muchova ended a streak of four straight losses in three-set matches.
“Very tough match — basically what I expected,” Muchova said. “She’s one of the best players playing her best tennis these days. You really have to be ready to attack, because if you slice a slow ball or something she’s really going to smash you.
“Second set I fell a little short. I felt a little down and she was just smashing it. I just tried to get through the second set, tried to regroup. Third set, I was just trying to fight for every ball. We’ve had some close battles, so I was trying to put every ball over the net and it was worth it in the end.”
Muchova broke Sabalenka’s serve three times — all in the deciding set.
“I played her twice last year, and it’s definitely been a year of improvement,” Muchova said. “She drop shots, she’s better at net. There were some great shots she played. I think she’s moving better. I could see that she improved, and I was just trying to keep up. But I think I improved as well. Somehow, I was feeling pretty good on court. Of course, I still need to work on my fitness — I didn’t have much time to work on it this year.”
Zheng also needed three sets to reach the semifinals, rallying past No. 17 seed Mirra Andreeva of Russia 5-7, 6-0, 6-4 in 2 hours and 32 minutes.
Zheng converted nine of 18 break chances and won 73 percent of the points on her first serve (30 of 41) despite double faulting eight times.
Fourth-seeded Coco Gauff and No. 15 Paula Badosa of Spain meet in the other semifinal.
–Field Level Media
