Wimbledon 2025: No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka withstands early challenge from Emma Raducanu to win in straight sets

Yahoo

4 hours ago

During a Wimbledon tournament in which four of the top five women's seeds have already lost before the round of 16, No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka prevailed in her third-round match over Emma Raducanu on Friday, 7-6 (6), 6-4.
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However, as the score indicates, Sabalenka didn't dispatch her British opponent easily on home territory. The match was pushed back by nearly an hour as Carlos Alcaraz finished off Jan-Lennard Struff in four sets. But to say that delay affected Sabalenka at the start doesn't give Raducanu enough credit.
Raducanu went ahead 4-2 in the opening set, winning 10 of her first serves. She particularly frustrated Sabalenka by returning her serve, no matter how hard they were hit, and moving her around the court with slices toward the corners and on the lines.
And as could be expected, Raducanu had loud support from the crowd at Centre Court.
Sabalenka fought her way back to 4-3 as Raducanu appeared to be rattled by a shot that Hawk-Eye ruled in by 0.4 mm. From there, the world No. 1 rallied to go up 5-4. Raducanu also looked as if she hurt her knee while getting her feet tangled on a cross-court return.
Emma Raducanu appeared to hurt her knee during her first set against Aryna Sabalenka during their third-round match at Wimbledon. (Photo by HENRY NICHOLLS/AFP via Getty Images)
(HENRY NICHOLLS via Getty Images)
Yet rather than buckle after letting Sabalenka come back, she held by saving seven set points and tied the set at 5-5. Raducanu appeared to struggle with her knee but stayed tough and went ahead 6-5. The crowd was eager to see an upset in the making.
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Sabalenka was undeterred and shook off the challenge from Raducanu to continue pursuit of her first Wimbledon championship. A lob shot just out of Raducanu's reach knotted the set at 6-6 and forced a tiebreaker.
From there, the slices that previously dropped in began landing out and Raducanu seemed to get discouraged by not capitalizing on Sabalenka's mistakes. The No. 1 seed took advantage, dropping a shot at the net that Raducanu couldn't get to and following that with a serve that she hit into the net.
After losing that grueling first set, Raducanu continued to battle, winning her serve and regaining the accuracy on shots into the corner that left Sabalenka reaching and out of position. She took a 4-1 lead in the set and was a point away from going up 5-1. But Sabalenka held serve and began to assert her power on forehand returns.
Whether or not her knee became more of an issue or she began to tire against Sabalenka's hard returns, Raducanu finally began to falter after the set was tied at 4-4. Again, Sabalenka took control with her serve and Raducanu didn't have an answer.
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Following the match, Sabalenka credited Raducanu, saying she would return to the top 10. The 2024 U.S. Open champion then joked about the crowd providing such loud support for her opponent.
'Sometimes my ears were, like, really blocked from how loud it was, but I really enjoyed it,' she said. 'I was trying to trick my brain, and I was pretending that people were cheering for me. Sometimes when they were screaming 'Emma', it sounded like 'Aryna.'"
Sabalenka will face Elise Mertens in a fourth-round match on Sunday. The No. 24 seed upset No. 14 Elina Svitolina in straight sets 6-1, 7-6, to advance. Sabalenka is 10-2 overall versus Mertens, beating her twice this year and defeating her in the round of 16 at last year's U.S. Open.