Aryna Sabalenka came under early pressure as she launched her bid for a third Australian Open title but the Belarusian clicked into gear and overpowered French wildcard Tiantsoa Rakotomanga Rajaonah 6-4 6-1 to reach the second round on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The world number one arrived for the match at Rod Laver Arena as the firm favourite but found herself a break down after the opening game and looked troubled throughout the first set by the guile of left-hander Rakotomanga Rajaonah despite getting back on serve.<\/p>\n
“I think I didn’t start my best but she showed up, was fired up and she was playing great. It was a tricky start and I’m super happy I found my rhythm at the end of the first set and I felt a bit more confident,” Sabalenka said.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t know much about her, I watched her previous games, but it’s always tricky to play against someone you don’t really know and also left-handed but I’m super happy to be able to close this match in straight sets.”<\/p>\n
Sabalenka eventually found her rhythm and reasserted control, turning her initial difficulties into little more than a footnote as the 27-year-old settled into her power game to go up 5-4 and wrapped up the set with a huge forehand that her opponent returned long.<\/p>\n
An early break in the second set helped Sabalenka to go 3-0 up and there was no stopping the four-times major champion, who closed out the contest on her third matchpoint to book a second-round clash with either Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova or Bai Zhuoxuan.<\/p>\n
Sabalenka celebrated her win by taking a selfie with tennis greats Roger Federer and Rod Laver, who were in the stands.<\/p>\n
“I’m a huge fan… I got a little bit tired and I wanted to show great tennis so you guys enjoy watching me play. What a privilege – thank you so much and I really hope you guys enjoyed just a little bit. It was a lot of pressure.”<\/p>\n
Williams knocked out<\/p>\n
Olga Danilovic beat Venus Williams 6-7(5), 6-3, 6-4 at the Australian Open on Sunday after the Serbian fought back from 4-0 down in the deciding set to knock the American veteran out of the tournament in the first round.<\/p>\n
Williams, a seven-time Grand Slam champion who returned to tennis last season after a 16-month break, received a wildcard to become the oldest woman ever to compete in the singles main draw on her return to the tournament after five years.<\/p>\n
The 45-year-old fed off the crowd early on, racing to a 2\u20130 lead before Danilovic recovered and broke back to level the set.<\/p>\n
The American produced flashes of her trademark brilliance but, after missing an early set point, was pushed into a tiebreak, which she won on her fourth set point with a decisive forehand winner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Aryna Sabalenka came under early pressure as she launched her bid for a third Australian Open title but the Belarusian clicked into gear and overpowered French wildcard Tiantsoa Rakotomanga Rajaonah 6-4 6-1 to reach the second round on Sunday. The world number one arrived for the match at Rod Laver Arena as the firm favourite …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1396"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1401,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1396\/revisions\/1401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}