By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Saturday March 9, 2024
Aryna Sabalenka battled back from the brink to earn an epic victory over American Peyton Stearns.
Photo Source: Getty
Indian Wells – Aryna Sabalenka was nearly boxed out of the 2024 BNP Paribas Open on Saturday night, but her trademark eye of the tiger had other ideas. The No.2 seed, last year’s runner-up at Indian Wells, faced four match points as up-and-coming American Peyton Stearns served for the win at 5-4 in the final set, but refused to yield.
Stearns blinked. Sabalenka roared, and in the end the two-time major champion emerged with a dramatic 6-7(2), 6-2, 7-6(6) triumph that gave the paying customers on s two hour and 54-minute thrillride inside Stadium 1.
“I think I was right when I did this tattoo of a tiger – I was fighting today like a tiger,” an overjoyed Sabalenka told the crowd.
After saving the four match points ten games into the final set, the drama was just beginning to peak. Sabalenka was broken again in the next game and also took a fall that could have hurt her left leg, but she regrouped, broke again for 6-all and finished off the match in the tiebreak – but not before Stearns saved three match points from 6-3 down to level at 6-all.
“This match definitely goes into the book of craziest matches and the best matches of my career,” Sabalenka, who will face Emma Raducanu in the third round, said.
It was a difficult loss, but full of positive signs for Stearns, who stood toe-to-toe with Sabalenka, and could have easily earned the biggest win of her career had she not tightened up in the waning moments.
“Somehow I returned the crazy serve [on the first match point], put it back, she didn't expect that. I made a great backhand crosscourt,” Sabalenka said, adding: “Then the second match point, I kind of started feeling she's getting tight and I was [saying to myself]: probably this is a good opportunity for me to stay in the match.
“I think I won that game because she kind of started thinking too much – I mean, good for me, I was super happy that I was able to win that game.”
Of the fall she took at 5-5, Sabalenka said she is confident that she won’t suffer any ill effects.
“In that moment when they twisted a little bit, I thought, oh, God, what did I do wrong?” she said. “I think right before that really crazy twist [of the left leg] I was able to kind of let it go, and kind of save myself. So I feel like it should be okay.”
Sabalenka improves to 12-2 on the season and 9-4 in this her fourth appearance at the BNP Paribas Open.
Pegula, Zheng Toppled
It wasn’t a brilliant day for big names as No.5-seeded American Jessica Pegula was knocked out by Russia’s Anna Blinkova, while eighth-seeded Zheng Qinwen, this year’s Australian Open runner-up, was defeated by compatriot Yuan Yue, 6-4, 6-3.
Pegula, who fell in this year’s Australian Open in the second round and later parted ways with David Witt, her coach of five years, drops to 6-6 lifetime at Indian Wells.
Yuan, last week’s Austin champion, has now won seven consecutive matches and made her Top 50 debut last week. She will face Caroline Dolehide, who defeated former champion Victoria Azarenka, in the third round.
Six Top-10 seeds – Pegula, Zheng, fourth-seeded Elena Rybakina (withdrawal due to illness), sixth-seeded Ons Jabeur, seventh-seeded Marketa Vondrousova (injury withdrawal) and 10th-seeded Jelena Ostapenko failed have all been eliminated from the women's side in the California desert.