Aryna Sabalenka mullers Veronika Kudermetova 6-2 6-2 in the final in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday after playing an impressive match to win her 9th career title, the 1nd of this season.
This was Aryna’s 15th consecutive win as she conquered the last 3 tournaments that she has played. Sabalenka closed gloriously her 2020 winning Linz and Ostrava.
After the match, Aryna commented:
“I was doing everything I could in each match from the beginning, and I’m really happy to start this season with a title. Every final is really something special, and I would say, finals are a different competition,” the Belarusian stated. “This final was really nice, and I would say a really fast game.”
Sabalenka will now head to Melbourne where she will be one of the top favorites to win the 1st slam of the season.
Live score progression and stats
The Belarussian in this set stepped up in great fashion to overplay Kudermetova and without too much hustling she won 6-2 after breaking Veronika in the 6th (4-2) and in the 8th (6-2) game.
Veronika was unable to find the solution against the opposition in the last 4 games of the set when the score went from 2-2 to 6-2.
They contested 43 points. Sabalenka won 15 more points than Veronika (29-14). Aryna was extremely solid on serve to drop just 4 points (17-4). on the other side of the net, Veronika conceded 12 points on serve (10-12).
Sabalenka started the set strong after breaking Kudermetova in the 2nd game (2-0). Anyhow, that wasn’t sufficient for the Belarussian to win the set as the Russian found the way to break back in the 3rd (1-2) and in the 7th (2-5) game. Sabalenka kept her cool to break the Russian in the 4th (3-1), in the 6th (5-1) and in the 8th (6-2) game.
The Belarussian failed to serve out the set when leading 5-1 to be broken at 40.
Aryna converted 40% of her break points (4/10). She had 10 break points opportunities in the 2nd (1-0 15-40), the 4th (2-1 0-40 and 15-40), the 6th (4-1 15-40, 30-40, 40-A, 40-A, 40-A and 40-A) and the 8th game (5-2 30-40). Moreover, on the other side, Kudermetova converted 33% of her break points (2/6). She had her opportunities in the 3rd (0-2 0-40, 15-40 and 30-40) and the 7th game (1-5 15-40, 30-40 and 40-A).
They contested 57 points. Sabalenka won 13 more points than the Russian (35-22). The Belarussian surrendered 11 points on serve (14-11). Regarding the other side of the net, Kudermetova conceded 21 points on serve (11-21).
Stats: aces, double faults, breaks, winners
1h:05
At the end of the match, the Belarussian scored 63 points vs. Veronika’s 37.
The Belarussian was pretty focused in converting 50% of the break points that she procured (6/12). On the other side, Veronika was not so effective in converting her break points (only 33% – 2/6). That was one of the key issues for her loss.
After this match, the head to head between Sabalenka and Kudermetova is 2-0 for Aryna.
This was the 9th career title for the Belarussian. (see list of the title). This was Kudermetova’s 4th final after she lost in Tianjin 2017, in Lugano 2018, in Eastbourne 2018 and in San Jose 2019.
