NEW YORK
\nAryna Sabalenka kept her US Open three-peat bid alive Sunday, charging into the US Open quarter-finals with a confidence boosting victory over tricky American Taylor Townsend.
\nSabalenka took everything the multi-faceted Townsend threw at her to emerge with a 6-4, 6-3 victory, winning the last five games to push her Flushing Meadows win streak to 17 matches.
\n\u201cI love matches like that, because it was really challenging, and going through tough challenges and overcoming those challenges, it definitely gives you strength and really strong belief that you can do it,\u201d Sabalenka said.
\n\u201cSo these kind of matches is really, really, really like a boost of confidence.\u201d
\nSabalenka is vying to become just the third woman, after Chris Evert and Serena Williams, to win three straight US Open titles.
\nShe\u2019ll have to lift the trophy just to have a chance of retaining her world number one ranking, and even if she does her time at the top could end in New York, where second-ranked Elena Rybakina needs only to reach the semis to be assured of ascending.
\n\u201cI completely separate myself from that, because it\u2019s just guessing,\u201d Sabalenka said of the multiple number one scenarios \u2014 which could also see third-ranked Jessica Pegula or even No. 4 Coco Gauff end the tournament at the top.
\n\u201cI\u2019m just trying to bring my best tennis every time I\u2019m competing out there and basically fight for it,\u201d she added.
\nSabalenka needed all of her powers of concentration in her first career meeting with Townsend, the world\u2019s second-ranked doubles player who boasts formidable skills at the net as well as power from the baseline and a steely return game.
\nThe match opened with five breaks of serve before Sabalenka managed a comfortable hold for a 4-2 first-set lead.
\nShe had double-faulted to hand Townsend a break in the second game and Townsend broke again in the fourth with a massive service return.
\nBut Sabalenka\u2019s sustained power and precision proved a little too much.
\nTownsend broke her as she served for the set at 5-2, but by the time the American managed a hold for 5-4 it was too late, and Sabalenka held serve for just the second time to pocket the set, saving a break point before putting it away with a trademark forehand winner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEW YORK Aryna Sabalenka kept her US Open three-peat bid alive Sunday, charging into the US Open quarter-finals with a confidence boosting victory over tricky American Taylor Townsend. Sabalenka took everything the multi-faceted Townsend threw at her to emerge with a 6-4, 6-3 victory, winning the last five games to push her Flushing Meadows win …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":102709,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102728"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102741,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102728\/revisions\/102741"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}