ADVERTISEMENT
Aryna Sabalenka suffered a shock loss in her first post-Australian Open match as the Belarusian is out of the WTA 1000 tournament in Doha.
After a first-round bye, the top seed met Ekaterina Alexandrova in her opener at the Qatar Open.
And although the Belarusian made a good start and won the first set, she still ended up losing after the world No. 26 completed a stunning 3-6 6-3 7-6 (5) win.
Early in the match, Sabalenka claimed a break in the fourth game but also saved a total of seven break points across two different games.
After failing to realize some of her first-set opportunities, Alexandrova started the second set with a 2-0 lead - blew her early break - but broke the world No. 1 again in the eighth game for a 5-3 lead before serving out for a decider in the following game.
ADVERTISEMENT
In the third set, the Belarusian was twice up by a break but the Russian twice came back to ultimately force a tie-break - in which she opened a 6-3 lead before converting her third match point to complete her comeback win.
Sabalenka indicated that she didn't have big expectations for Doha
After arriving at the Qatar Open two weeks after a very painful Australian Open final loss, the 26-year-old suggested that she would use Doha and next week's Dubai as "a preparation" for Indian Wells and Miami.
"The schedule is actually pretty tough, especially if you make it to the last stage of the Australian Open, then you don't have much time to recover and prepare yourself for these big events," the world No. 1 explained in her pre-tournament press conference.
"I believe I'll just take these two tournaments as a preparation for the Sunshine one, and I'll try to build my tennis, and probably take my tennis to the next level in these two events."
ADVERTISEMENT
It will be interesting to see how Sabalenka does in Dubai next.
