The last time Aryna Sabalenka and Naomi Osaka faced off, neither had won a Grand Slam title.
When they clashed for the second time, on Tuesday in the fourth round of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif., each entered as a four-time major winner. The current top seed, Sabalenka, emerged with a 6-2, 6-4 win over the 16th-seeded Osaka.
The result was the reverse of their fourth-round meeting in the 2018 U.S. Open, when Osaka prevailed in three sets on her way to her first major championship.
This time it was Sabalenka in charge, as she won 70% of her service points and saved both of Osaka’s break opportunities.
“I’m super happy with the performance today, the way I brought variety on court, that I made her guess most of the times, and of course happy with the serves, so I felt like it was a great performance for me,” Sabalenka said.
Sabalenka acknowledged that her scant history with Osaka was due in part to Osaka’s maternity leave from the tour.
“Can you believe for so many years on tour we only played once?” Sabalenka said. “But I feel like I started doing better when she got pregnant. I think that’s why we didn’t have much opportunities to face each other, and I feel like, pretty sure that we’re gonna face each other many more times.”
Osaka said, “It definitely felt like playing her for the first time. I think, like, obviously I could watch her on TV or whatever, but in reality, it’s very different.
“I also feel like I was a little, like, flat-footed sometimes, because I expected the ball to be coming harder but then it didn’t. She grunts the same way for every ball. I was, like, ‘Oh, my God, she tricked me (smiling).’
“No, it was a cool learning experience. I know we haven’t played for a long time, so I hope that we can play again sometime soon.”
Sabalenka’s next opponent, in the quarterfinals, will be 10th-seeded Victoria Mboko of Canada, who defeated sixth-seeded Amanda Anisimova 6-4, 6-1, in an evening match.
Reaching her first quarterfinal at the tournament in a 73-minute match, Mboko went 4-for-4 on break chances, taking a 4-3 lead in the first set with a break then closing out the match with another. The Canadian also won 82% of her first-serve points (27 of 33) and saved the only break point she faced.
In the other afternoon match, Australian qualifier Talia Gibson knocked out seventh-seeded Jasmine Paolini of Italy 7-5, 2-6, 6-1. It was the first time the 21-year-old Gibson defeated a top-10-ranked opponent, with the result making her the first qualifier to reach the Indian Wells quarterfinals since Lesia Tsurenko in 2015.
“I think (I’m) just super proud what I have been able to achieve over these last two weeks,” Gibson said. “Yeah, honestly, still pretty speechless that I made it this far.”
In the final match of the night, 14th-seeded Linda Noskova of the Czech Republic dominated 31st-seeded Alexandra Eala of the Philippines 6-2, 6-0 in a match that lasted less than an hour. Noskova notched seven aces to zero for Eala, saved the one break point she faced and broke Eala five times out of eight opportunities. Noskova won 30 of 38 (78.9%) service points.
–Field Level Media
