Osaka Stuns Sabalenka to Reach Her First Wimbledon Quarterfinal
Her serve never broke and her nerve never wobbled. Osaka's win over the world No. 1 ended the longest tiebreak streak in Grand Slam history.
Naomi Osaka laid her racket flat on top of her head and turned a slow circle in the middle of Centre Court. It was her first career win on that stage, and she had just taken it off the world No. 1.
Osaka beat Aryna Sabalenka 6-2, 7-6 (2) on Sunday, July 5, to reach her first Wimbledon quarterfinal, needing less than an hour and a half on the warmest day of the tournament so far, with the Centre Court thermometer at 82 degrees Fahrenheit. It was her first victory over a top-ranked player since she beat Ash Barty in Beijing in 2019.
The history she was carrying made the scoreline stranger. Osaka came in 0-13 against top-10 players everywhere except hard courts, and had lost all three meetings with Sabalenka this year, including at the same stage of the French Open last month. All of that went in an afternoon.
The serve did it. Osaka never lost a service game, put 87 percent of her first serves in play to Sabalenka's 69, saved the only two break points she faced and finished ahead 8-5 in aces and 21-15 in winners, ESPN reported. Her flat groundstrokes flew through the warm air fast enough that on one point early in the second set she practically knocked Sabalenka off her feet.
Sabalenka's numbers going in were the kind that win championships. She had taken 21 consecutive tiebreaks at Grand Slams, the longest such run by any man or woman in the Open era; it ended in a second-set breaker she lost 7-2. She had reached the quarterfinals or better at 14 straight majors, the second-longest streak by any woman since 2000; that ended too. It was her first straight-sets defeat at a major since the 2020 US Open. Late in the first set one of her coaches came down from the stands with four freshly strung rackets. None of them helped.
"It's been a long time since I've had so much fun on the court. And to do it here, it really means a lot."
Naomi Osaka, speaking on court after the match
What makes the afternoon land differently is the detour that preceded it. Osaka stepped away from the tour in 2021 to manage her mental health and missed all of 2023 on maternity leave. A week ago she retired from the Bad Homburg final, the first grass-court final of her career, with a foot injury. On Sunday she walked out in the white kimono she has worn for her Wimbledon entrances, then played the cleanest big match of her comeback. This tournament keeps demanding survival from its champions; Jannik Sinner needed five sets just to get out of his opener. Osaka skipped that part entirely.
Karolina Muchova, the No. 10 seed, waits in the quarterfinal. All four of Osaka's Grand Slam titles, and all four of Sabalenka's, came on hard courts, and the question of which of them would solve grass first has hung over the rivalry all year. For one afternoon, the answer wore a kimono.
