The Estonian Kaia Kanepi made her life harder after losing 3 match balls at her service but finally won the match versus the second-seeded Aryna Sabalenka and qualified for the quarter-finals of the Australian Open. The Estonian won by 2-1 (5:7, 6:2, 7:6) in the match that lasted 2 hours and 19 minutes.
Kaia Kanepi was more precise in the service, making 5 aces and 4 double faults, while the Belarusian player made 7 aces, but 15 double faults. The Estonian had 30 winners and 30 unforced errors, while Aryna Sabalenka made 36 winners and 50 unforced errors.
The match started with service for Aryna Sabalenka, who won it easily. Kaia Kanepi served in the second game, but started very timidly and gave two breakpoints to her opponent. However, she succeeded to save them and eventually won her service game. The first set was running game-for-game to 5:5 without breaks. The 11th game of the set was at the service of Aryna Sabalenka, who gave 2 breakpoints to Kaia Kanepi, but in the end saved them and won the game. In the next game, however, the Estonian service was not strong enough and she suffered a break on zero, loving the first set with 5:7.
The second set started with two breaks for Kaia Kanepi, who took a lead of 4:0. The Estonian improved her service and started winning her games. thus, the set ended in her favor for 6:2.
The third set brought a lot of drama. Kaia Kanepi started the match perfectly, registering a break already in the first game and winning her service. She had a comfortable lead of two games, but Aryna Sabalenka succeeded to return the break for 4:4. However, Kaia Kanepi succeeded to make another break immediately and was feeling the victory. She was serving for the match and took a lead of 40-0, having three match points at her own service. Aryna Sabalenka succeeded to save all of them, but after a deuce the Estonian had another chance. In the end, she lost it as well and the match turned 5:5. Both won their service games and put the match into a tiebreak. Kaia Kanepi took a lead in the tiebreak of 5-2. Aryna Sabalenka succeeded to equalize the score to 5-5 and even took a lead of 5-6. The Estonian player again moved ahead, but the Belarusian caught her in the result. Finally, Kaia Kanepi got her fifth breakpoint at 9-7 with a service of Aryna Sabalenka, but this time she didn’t miss it and won the match.
In the quarter-finals, Kaia Kanepi will face the 7th-seeded Iga Swiatek, who defeated the Romanian Sorana Cirstea with 2-1 (5:7, 6:3, 6:3).
