Australian Open: Linette beats Garcia, Sabalenka beats Bencic

Raise your hand who would have bet: it’s not Iga Swiatek the Polish who will go furthest at the Australian Open. The new name of the second week in Melbourne Park is that of Magda Linette (n.45 WTA), who defeated one of the favorites, the number 4 in the world Caroline Garcia, by 7-6 (3) 6-4 in almost two hours of game. And to think that the Frenchwoman had started off very strong, with those two initial breaks that presaged a victory without discounts. Instead, the figure that condemned her was the 33 unforced errors. Too many, if in front of her you have a player as fit as the Pole, who thus conquered her first quarterfinal in a slam at the age of 30.

Sabalenka is there

—

In the next round for her there is Karolina Pliskova (n.31), ex n.1 in the world who is chasing the form of her best days. It took the Czech tennis player less than an hour to defeat an opponent who was never predictable like Zhang Shuai (n.22), settled with a 6-0 6-4. On paper, the match of the day is instead the one that saw Aryna Sabalenka (n.5) prevail over Belinda Bencic (n.10), who had eliminated Camila Giorgi in the previous round. Sabalenka prevailed in a clash between players in great form in this 2023, recovering from an early break deficit to win 7-5 6-2. The Belarusian thus makes 8/8 this season, keeping the count of sets lost in Melbourne at 0. Most of the reasons for this extraordinary march were summed up by the opponent at the press conference: “I felt that I could not manage her power in any way”. In the next round she will find Donna Vekic (n.64), who extinguished the dreams of glory of the youngest player left in the draw, Linda Fruhvirtova (n.82), beaten in two hours and seven minutes for 6-3 1-6 6- 3.