On January 17th, Beijing time, the third round of the new season's Australian Open women's singles began. A match was played between defending champion Sabalenka and Tauson. In the end, Sabalenka refused to be upset and eliminated Tauson with a score of 7-6 (5), 6-4, successfully advancing to the round of 16. At the same time, she achieved an impressive 17 consecutive victories at the Australian Open, continuing to refresh her career record of the longest winning streak in the four Grand Slams.
In the past two years, Sabalenka has been the most successful player on the Grand Slam hard court, winning two Australian Open titles and one US Open title. This year's Australian Open is also the top favorite to win the championship. She has already achieved 16 consecutive victories at the Australian Open, showing super stability.
In order to achieve the goal of winning the Australian Open three times in a row, Sabalenka participated in the WTA500 Brisbane Station competition to warm up in advance and prepare for the defense of the Australian Open. She eventually won the championship with a wave of five consecutive victories. After arriving in Melbourne, Sabalenka won Stephens and Bossas consecutively, advancing smoothly to the third round and moving closer to the championship.
In this game, Sabalenka faced a real challenge. Her opponent, Tauson, was in excellent form. Although her world ranking is only 42nd, her serving, receiving, and rallying abilities are not inferior to any of the top ten players in the world.
In the first set, the two sides engaged in a break battle. After Tauson broke serve, she was immediately broken back by Sabalenka, and the first six games ended in a 3-3 draw. In the seventh game, after Tauson broke serve, she successfully held serve in the eighth game, which was the first hold of serve in this game, giving her a 5-3 lead and putting Sabalenka in great trouble.
Under desperate circumstances, Sabalenka withstood the pressure, first holding serve successfully, then breaking serve at a critical moment to level the score at 5-5. In the twelfth game, with four set points in hand, Tauson fought back to hold serve, leading to a tiebreak. In the end, Sabalenka won 7-5.
Entering the second set, both sides played relatively normally in their service games. There was only one break in the first six games, which was Tauson's second service game. After Sabalenka held serve continuously, she took a 4-2 lead. Then Tauson held serve and broke back to level the score at 4-4. In the crucial ninth game, after seven deuces, Sabalenka completed the break, followed by holding serve in the tenth game to win 6-4, ultimately eliminating Tauson.
After the victory, Sabalenka achieved 17 consecutive victories at the Australian Open, advancing strongly to the round of 16. In the next round, she will face the winner between Fletcher and Mira Andreeva.
Due to Zheng Qinwen's unexpected elimination in the second round, domestic fans could not see Zheng Qinwen compete against Sabalenka for the second consecutive year at the Australian Open. Even though Zheng Qinwen lost all five encounters with Sabalenka, they still hoped to overcome this obstacle. Now they can only wait for other events.
Earlier, in another match, Sigmond, who surprisingly eliminated Zheng Qinwen in the previous round, was swept by the 27th seed Pavlyuchenkova in the third round, losing two sets 1-6, 2-6 and only winning three games, making Zheng Qinwen's defeat even more embarrassing.