The top seed at the US Open and the reigning champion, Sabalenka downed 31st-seeded Fernandez 6-3, 7-6 (2) in third-round action on Friday in New York.
Sabalenka closed the match by winning her 18th consecutive tiebreaker, an Open Era record. The Belarusian star improved to 20-1 in tiebreakers this year, the most tiebreaker wins by a player in a season during the Open Era.
“I wanted this revenge badly,” Sabalenka said afterwards. “She’s a great player, great competitor always bringing the fight on the court. I’m very happy with this win.” Fernandez, a Canadian, had upset Sabalenka in the 2021 US Open semifinals.
In earlier action, top-10 seeds Jessica Pegula and Elena Rybakina swept into the fourth round, but Jasmine Paolini and Emma Navarro were ousted.
Ex-Wimbledon champ Marketa Vondrousova knocked off Italian seventh seed Paolini 7-6 (4), 6-1 in their third-round match.
The unseeded Czech hit six aces and remained unbroken throughout the clash. The pair were locked into a competitive back-and-forth in the key sixth game of the second set when Paolini sent a backhand stab sailing long to help Vondrousova convert her sixth break point.
“It was a very important game,” Vondrousova said after the match. “Big difference between 4-2 and 5-1. It was a crazy game – and the key to the match.”
The 29-year-old Paolini had two straight-set wins leading into Friday’s matchup, including breezing past teenager Iva Jovic in her second-round match. Coming into the US Open, she had been playing some of her best tennis, including a trip to the Cincinnati Open final, where she fell to Polish star Iga Swiatek, and titles in both singles and doubles at the Italian Open this year.
It is the first time Vondrousova has reached the fourth round of a major since last year’s French Open, where she lost to Swiatek in the quarterfinal. She next faces the ninth-seeded Rybakina of Kazakhstan, who lost just three games and needed only 62 minutes to defeat Great Britain’s Emma Raducanu 6-1, 6-2.
A former Wimbledon champ like Vondrousova, Rybakina’s weakest Grand Slam has historically been the US Open. This marks her first time reaching the fourth round in Flushing Meadows.
No 4 seed Pegula made the 2024 US Open her closest call at a major before falling to Sabalenka in the final.
The New York state native is trying to chart a course back to the final as she defeated former world No 1 Victoria Azarenka of Belarus 6-1, 7-5 in Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic rallied to beat No 10 Navarro 4-6, 6-4, 6-4. Spaniard Cristina Bucsa upset No 19 seed Elise Mertens of Belgium 3-6, 7-5, 6-3, and the United States’ Ann Li got past Australia’s Priscilla Hon 7-5, 6-3. (Reuters/AFP)