The defending champion pits her wits against a first-time Grand Slam finalist on Saturday, as Aryna Sabalenka and Qinwen Zheng fight for the right to lift the Australian Open trophy aloft in the women's singles showpiece.
Sabalenka exacted revenge over Coco Gauff to keep her dreams of back-to-back triumphs alive, while Zheng came up trumps against Dayana Yastremska in the battle of the maiden major semi-finalists.
Match preview
© Reuters
The magical run of either Chinese trailblazer Zheng or Ukrainian qualifier Yastremska was doomed to come to an end in Thursday's groundbreaking encounter, where both players stepped foot onto the hard court for a first-ever major semi-final, as well as an inaugural WTA Tour meeting with one another.
However, after shaking off the early cobwebs, Zheng emerged victorious 6-4 6-4 in a tie where she won 76% of points behind her first serve, saved eight of the 10 break points she allowed Yastremska to fashion and added another four aces - including one on match point - to her unparalleled tally.
The 12th seed - whose total of 48 aces at the 2024 Australian Open is by far and away the most of any women's singles player - also benefitted from an injury to Yastremska late in the first set, but she forced the qualifier into mistakes throughout their one-hour and 42-minute contest and was a deserved winner under the night sky.
By closing the book on the Yastremska fairytale, Zheng is now just the second Chinese player to reach a Grand Slam singles final after Li Na, who coincidentally triumphed at the Australian Open 10 years ago, and Saturday's showpiece will mark her fifth overall final on the WTA Tour.
Zheng has already bested one Grand Slam champion en route to a piece of silverware, defeating Barbora Krejcikova in October's Zhengzhou Open for her second top-level crown, but the 21-year-old is yet to test her mettle against a seeded player at this year's Melbourne Slam.
© Reuters
Prior to Zheng's success in front of the Rod Laver Arena crowd, a few famous faces took their seats for a mouthwatering rematch of the 2023 US Open final, where a first-set success for Sabalenka was in vain against American teenager Gauff, but the Belarusian successfully rectified those Flushing Meadows mistakes in the day's first semi-final.
In just over 100 minutes, the heavy-hitting second seed completed her vengeance mission with a 7-6[2] 6-4 victory against Gauff, thereby becoming the first woman since Serena Williams in 2016 and 2017 to reach back-to-back Australian Open singles finals and advancing to a 26th WTA Tour championship match overall.
Neither Sabalenka nor Gauff cut confident figures in the first set, where six breaks were shared before the second seed ran away with the tie-breaker owing to a succession of ferocious forehands, and on Sabalenka's first match point, a 120mph serve proved too hot for Gauff to handle.
A few inexplicable misses off the Sabalenka racquet led to gasps around the Rod Laver Arena, but as is normally the case, the intimidating Belarusian made up for such shortcomings with 33 winners in her semi-final and saw 76% of her first serves find the mark.
While Sabalenka enters Saturday's final wearing the favourites sticker, the reigning champion has struggled to assert her dominance when it matters most in recent months - losing four of her last five WTA Tour finals - but she passed a serious physical and psychological test of her title credentials by clearing a Gauff-sized hurdle.
Tournament so far
Qinwen Zheng:
First round: vs. Ashlyn Krueger 3-6 6-2 6-3
Second round: vs. Katie Boulter 6-3 6-3
Third round: vs. Yafan Wang 6-4 2-6 7-6[8]
Round of 16: vs. Oceane Dodin 6-0 6-3
Quarter-final: Anna Kalinskaya 6-7[4] 6-3 6-1
Semi-final: Dayana Yastremska 6-4 6-4
Aryna Sabalenka:
First round: vs. Ella Seidel 6-0 6-1
Second round: vs. Brenda Fruhvirtova 6-3 6-2
Third round: vs. Lesia Tsurenko 6-0 6-0
Round of 16: vs. Amanda Anisimova 6-3 6-2
Quarter-final: vs. Barbora Krejcikova 6-2 6-3
Semi-final: vs. Coco Gauff 7-6[2] 6-4
Head To Head
US Open (2023) - Quarter-final: Sabalenka wins 6-1 6-4
The first and only top-level meeting between Zheng and Sabalenka so far coincidentally came at the most recent Grand Slam before the 2024 Australian Open, as the duo clashed in the quarter-finals of last year's US Open, where the latter was again seeded second.
In contrast, Zheng entered the Flushing Meadows event as the 23rd seed, and the Chinese experienced the true meaning of a baptism of fire against Sabalenka, who barely broke a sweat in a 6-1 6-4 victory, needing just one hour and 13 minutes to advance to the semi-finals.
On that occasion, Sabalenka raced into a 5-0 lead before Zheng - competing in her first major quarter-final - got on the board, and while the second set was a more even affair, Sabalenka faced no pressure on her own serve en route to a straightforward success.
We say: Sabalenka to win in two sets
Zheng has no doubt come on leaps and bounds since being swept aside by Sabalenka in September, and the reigning champion is sure to see at least a handful of first serves from the ace-specialist fly past her, but the 12th seed is still an unknown quantity given that this will be her first-ever Grand Slam final.
Such a lack of experience will work heavily in Sabalenka's favour, and the second seed has made it through to the showpiece match without dropping a single set. Zheng will not go down waving the white flag, but we can only picture Sabalenka's name being etched onto the trophy again.
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Ben Knapton
