Aryna Sabalenka Stuns Ashleigh Barty at Wuhan Open 2019 Semifinals

Published 09/27/2019, 6:28 AM EDT

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World No.1 Ashleigh Barty was knocked out of the Wuhan Open 2019 on Friday, losing her semi-final tie 7-5, 6-4 to the defending champion Aryna Sabalenka in 1 hour and 41 minutes.

Set One

Aryna Sabalenka made a strong start by breaking the No.1 seed in the opening game of the match. However, Ashleigh Barty came back into the match after capitalizing the first breakpoint on Sabalenka’s serve to get back on serve at 3-3.

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It looked like the opening set would be decided by a tiebreaker but the Belarusian changed gears to broke the Australian for the second time to serve for the set.

Barty still did not lose hopes as she saved two set points when Aryna Sabalenka was serving for the opener. The 23-year-old also earned two break points to stay in the set but she squandered the opportunity as Aryna held her serve and claim the first set 7-5 in 56 minutes.

Set two

Ashleigh Barty broke Sabalenka’s momentum in the second set as she started off well holding her serve comfortably and troubling the 21-year-old in her opening service game of the set, however, the Australian once again failed to grab the breakpoint opportunities.

The two players then held their serves comfortably without facing a single breakpoint on either of the service games till 4-4, when Barty wasted two game points on her serve and was broken by the Belarusian to serve for the match. Sabalenka held her serve comfortably to claim the match.

On her way to defend her title, world No.14 Aryna Sabalenka will face the winner of the match between Petra Kvitova and Alison Riske in the finals of the Wuhan Open 2019. With this victory, Sabalenka will also maintain her spot in the top 20 rankings of the WTA leaderboards.

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Written by:

Varun Khanna

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Starting off as a tennis author in 2018, Varun Khanna has gone on to contribute to EssentiallySports in various capacities. After setting up interviews with the likes of Serena Williams’ coach Patrick Mouratoglou, Alizé Cornet, and Noah Rubin, Varun is now part of all major ATP and WTA press conferences and has gone on to pen more than 1300 articles for EssentiallySports. He now heads the tennis and NBA division of the organization.
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