Aryna Sabalenka charged into the quarter-finals at Melbourne Park for the first time with a 7-5, 6-2 win over Belinda Bencic
This time last year, the prospect of the Belarusian producing such a clutch serving sequence under pressure was laughable. While Sabalenka had always served a high number of double faults, she started last season with her serve in total meltdown. During a tournament in Adelaide, the 24-year-old simply could not land second serves in the court so she resorted to throwing in underarm serves. She finished the season with 440 double faults, 151 more than the second worst offender.
“I was, in that moment, open for whatever. I was just like, ‘Please, someone help me to fix this fucking serve,’” said Sabalenka. “I’m super happy that this thing with my serve happened to me before,” she said. “Before I wouldn’t be really open for that. I would be like, ‘You know what, my serve is fine, I don’t want to change anything.’ Actually, even when my serve was working, it wasn’t really right.”During her biomechanics sessions, Sabalenka spent her time watching videos of herself, understanding why she had so many issues putting the serve in the court and then discussing how to reshape the service motion.
“I’ve done a lot,” she said. “I worked so hard. Even when my serve was, how did you say, ‘disaster’? I worked a lot on my serve. I kept trying, kept believing, kept changing.”
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