WHAT HAPPENED: At times stunning and at others stuttering, Aryna Sabalenka completed her mission on Day 1, managing a 6-4, 6-7, 6-0 dismissal of Serbia’s Nina Stojanovic to book her spot in the second round. The No.2-seeded Belarusian only produced her trademark bristling baseline game in spurts in Louis Armstrong Stadium, but it was enough to keep the 25-year-old World No. 94 under her thumb as she powered to her 39th victory of 2021.
Sabalenka has now won all six meetings she has contested with Stojanovic, but Monday’s tilt was the pair’s first at the WTA level.
“First of all she’s a great player,” Sabalenka said. “Yeah we played a lot of matches on different levels and they were always not easy matches against her so I kind of expected a great battle today.”
Sabalenka struggled to get out of the blocks early, and her jitters set the tone for the rest of the contest, giving Stojanovic hope that she could produce an upset in her first ever match against a Top-10 opponent.
Sabalenka tossed in three double-faults in her first service game, each of which led to Stojanovic break points. The 23-year-old saved them all and escaped the 12-point game, but she wouldn’t shake free of Stojanovic until much later in the two-hour-and-24-minute affair.
Sabalenka claimed the final two games of the opening set, but quickly found herself losing her grip on the match in a seesaw second set. A pesky Stojanovic rallied from a break down, held steady and took aim at Sabalenka in the tiebreaker, opening up a 6-2 lead before converting her third set point with a drive volley winner to force a decider.
The third set represented a complete turnaround as Sabalenka elevated her game and raced past Stojanovic to improve her career record at the US Open to 6-3.
"In the third set you guys just helped me to fight til the end, for every point,” she told the crowd after the match.
WHAT IT MEANS: Sabalenka takes a step closer to matching her previous best US Open performance, but will have to summon more ethereal tennis if she is to reach the second week in New York for the second time in her fourth main draw appearance.
The Belarusian, who reached the Round of 16 on her US Open debut in 2018, won’t draw much confidence from the fact that she tossed in 11 double-faults and was only able to win 10 of 32 points behind her second serve through two sets. But Sabalenka can take comfort in the fact that she had the contest on her racquet all evening and really only got into trouble when her errors piled up. She’ll also be pleased by the fact that she wrestled the match completely from Stojanovic in a dominating third set.
Sabalenka produced six of her 13 aces and walloped 13 winners against just eight unforced errors to run away with the third set, setting a second-round clash with Tamara Zidansek of Slovenia.
MATCH POINT: In her first 15 Slam appearances, Sabalenka had lost five times in round one, and twice to players ranked lower than her.
On Monday the World No. 2 proved that she can handle a rocky road and still pull out a victory against an upset-minded opponent. It wasn’t a dreamy performance but it did keep the dream alive.
