Madrid '26: Coco chokes, Sabalenka survives PEAK Osaka, Rybakina flops

Coco Gauff and Elena Rybakina were eliminated at the Madrid Open after holding strong leads against Linda Noskova and Anastasia Potapova respectively. Aryna Sabalenka avoided the same fate, outlasting a red-hot Naomi Osaka to reach the quarterfinal. There she'll face a Hailey Baptiste who earned a MASSIVE three-set win vs Belinda Bencic.

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The woman gave us an absolute show today in Spain from the epic Sablanco Osaka Showdown, Noscova's comeback win over Coco, plus Baptiste and Andreva's near-choking victories. Meanwhile, on the men's side, let's just say they put the mid in Madrid. I'll talk about all the action and what the golf and robina loss has mean for their clay season campaigns. Hola, me llamo Christian Bas Night y bienvenido atrás, donde cubro el tenis deste todos los Angulos. If you have not yet already, make sure you subscribe and click that notification bell so you're notified whenever I post more Madrid open updates. So, as I predicted, the fourth round rematch between Arena Sabalanka and Naomi Osaka was much more competitive than their ending Wells affair, where Arena dropped just six games. That was last month. But today in Madrid, Sabalanka dropped a set before rallying back for a 6'7, 6'3, 6'2 win over her fellow four-time major champion. Both women were dominant on their serves from the get-go. And this was key for Naomi because I felt that she didn't serve nearly as well as she should have in Indine Wells. But only one break point was generated in the opening set, and that went the way of Sabalenka. She had that break point at one all, but Osaka saved it with the good serve plus one. And Naomi overall served better than the two in the opening set. Her return strategy, though, I think, of stepping further on top of the baseline and taking the ball early did not pay off, at least until the tiebreaker, as she missed a lot of returns before the breaker. But she connected with them in that tie break where she did her biggest one. She only lost one point. And I was shocked because Salenka is the notorious tiebreak queen. I think maybe Salenka could have served a little bit better in the breaker, but still Naomi was peaking. And I think though the biggest difference in the second and third sets compared to the first was Naomi's first serve and it losing its potency. Over half of Osaka's nine aces in this match came in the opening set. She won 89% of her first serve points in set number one, and that dipped to 53% of first serve points in the second set, and just 50% of first serve points won in the deciding set. The second set was interesting. Salanka honestly could have taken it sixth love with the amount of missed game and breakpoint opportunities that she didn't convert. But Osaka had chances to possibly take it in straight sets. Naomi won a few long service games at love one and two, three, saving four total break points in those two games. And she broke first in the match at one all and took advantage of a somewhat sloppy service game from Arena. But Naomi, giving credit to her, she had her strong moments as well in this game. But this break lead for Osaka did not last long as Salanka broke right back at love. I think that Naomi she went to the body a little bit too much. And I know her coach Tomaswit Karawski kept telling her to go body, but I think after a while, Salanka was reading the body serve well, and she was connecting with those returns very well. And I think overall, Naomi needed to do a better job of serving out wide to the Sal Blanca forehand, like I did think she did a good job of doing in the opening set. But I think Naomi's best shot at winning the match was winning in straight sets and being able to at least try to push the match to a second set tiebreaker, just with how well Sal Blanca herself was serving from that point forward. And Naomi gave up the ghost at 3-4 in the second set. She was up 40 love, but committed three bad backhand errors in a row. Not bad, but just not great backhand errors in a row before Sal Blanca played two excellent points in a row herself to get the crucial break. And only one of those serves from when Naomi was up 40 love in that 3-4 game went to Arena's forehand. So I think once again, that's an area where she could have done better her serve placement. But the third set, I think here Naomi got tired. She wasn't moving as well, and Sablanka took advantage as she was finally incorporating more drop shots. And honestly, some of the drop shots that Sablanka was hitting weren't even all that great. So that goes to show how Naomi just wasn't as intense as she was in that opening set. And Arena, as like I mentioned before, she was dominant on serve, especially in the third set. She dropped three total service points in the decider and won all 11 of her first serve points. Naomi's return, meanwhile, it was pretty poor. Overall, she was too sloppy, too, just too many unforced errors. And I think she also went away mentally a little bit after she got broken at 3-2. But still, I'd say it's a positive performance from Naomi. It was a little bit reminiscent of her Magic and Ega at Roland Girls in 2024, at least the first set and a half or so, as she did a lot of things well. Her serve was exceptional initially, and she really took it to Arena and prevented her from using her variety earlier on in the match with her penetrating ground strokes and willingness to change directions. I think that was really key. But at this point, though, Sal Blanca is too strong and experienced. She's world number one for a reason, and she's again has still not lost before the quarterfinals of any tournament since Dubai 2025. That's February of last year, which is again exceptional. And against Arena, you have to take your openings, you have to take any little opportunity because if you don't, she's gonna snatch it right from you and not look back, and that's what happened here. But I'm wondering if Naomi takes more positives from pushing Sablanko so hard, or does it mentally hurt her with her coming so close yet so far to another big breakthrough result? Because again, I feel like she's had multiple matches at this point, big matches, thinking about again Ega, Roland Garros 2024, Amanda, US Open semifinals, and Boco Montreal Final 2. But it's like she just cannot get through there in the end. It's like she loses her intensity a little bit. I don't know. Focusing on the positive positives with her is that this match proves that she can do big things on the clay. Yes, Madrid favors her a little bit more with the quicker conditions, but still, I think Roland Garros and Rome, despite them being slower, she could still do something at both those tournaments if she still plays like how she did in Madrid. I think if she had a different draw here, perhaps she could have reached the final. I don't know. But up next for Arena is Haley Baptiste, who earned a win for the books when she took down the 11th seed Belinda Benchitch, 6'1, 6'7, 6'3, to secure her second straight WTA 1000 quarterfinal. Haley served for the match initially at 6'5. And in this 6'5 game, she served three double faults, but was still able to generate a match point for herself, but couldn't convert, and then she ultimately got broken. Now we were brought to a tiebreaker, which was absolutely epic. It was 16-14. It's like neither woman really wanted to win the set with how they were playing at times. And Haley had six, I mean five match points in the tiebreaker alone. A few of those benches just came up with some good shots, but on two of the match points, it was on Haley's serve, and she double faulted on both the match points on her serve in the seconds at tiebreak. And at one point she had two double faults in a row, period. It was around 11 all. She hit that second double fault in a row, and she let her racket have it. This was such an impressive racket smash. It's like she should get a black belt and karate. I don't know. I know Serena would be proud of the racket smash, but ironically enough, Haley won the very next point after smashing her racket and really obliterating her racket, and she ultimately had another match point but could not convert. Now, Bench, she choked at times too. She needed six set points before finally converting the second set in her favor. And Haley could have easily gone away after losing the second set. I know a lot of women would have, but she stayed strong and continued to play her game because throughout the entire match, she was the better player. But she she played her game and it was good enough for her to get her fifth top 20 win of the season. And again, I've been so impressed with Haley throughout this entire season how she's improved all facets of her game from her serve is really phenomenal, but her consistency. Now she's doing that, especially with this win. I think a win like this can help her a lot for future matches. But yeah, like I said, up next for Haley is Arena Sabalenka. They played at the very last WTA 1000 tournament in Miami. That was the quarterfinal round as well. And Sablanka won it. It was a pretty tight one, 6'4, 6'4 in her favor. And I think Arena will be very aware of the threat that Haley poses. So I'm expecting her to come out sharper than she did perhaps against Naomi. Not saying that she didn't play well against Naomi in the opening stages, but I think I can see Arena play even better. But I think Haley does have a chance regardless. I think she has a great serve. That's gonna be huge for her because if you don't have a good serve, South Link is gonna be all on top of it. Although I do think, thinking back to that Miami open match, the double faults hurt Haley a little bit towards the end of that match. And we all know clearly with this benchish match, she can spray the double faults, so she needs to control that. I think that's gonna be the biggest one of the biggest things for her. But I'm expecting a pretty good match. I'm still saying Salanka will take it in a pretty tight and competitive straight sets match, like a 6-4-6-3, or maybe another 6-4-6-4, to be honest. But following Salenka Osaka on the Manolo Stadium court was Coco Goff, who fell to Linda Noskova by a score of 6-4-1-6-7-6. And Goff had never even lost a set to Linda in their two previous meetings, although both of them were in 2023. And I knew when the draw came out, I said Noscova has what it takes to beat Goff. And I was close to maybe having her do her big one, but I thought that Coco would ultimately be too consistent for her and that she would be too solid. Talking about this match in Madrid, Coco's serve and forehand just were not as strong at the start, which is why she got broken at two all. It was kind of a similar story from what we saw in her previous match against Suranna Cristea, but I do think that Noscova outplayed her in the opening set. She was phenomenal. She ended the opening set with 11 winners, just eight unforced errors. And she also just wasn't afraid to come to the net two and finish. She was firing on all cylinders. The Czech came up with some ridiculous shot making too. And she had a break point for a 2-1 lead in the second set, which Coco saved. And Coco went on a run after that. She won nine of the next 10 games after one-all. And Goff's returning level, I noticed, was much, much stronger from that point forward. She went more aggressive up the middle, which I think was a smart play as it took away the angles from Noskova. And I think she handled Linda's depth and pace a lot better and also used her backhand down the line to redirect a lot too. And the forehand, I think, was excellent from Coco in the second set and for the early part of the third set. Again, she accelerated through it nicely, wasn't really pulling off of it too, too much. And really, it was just the perfect set. The second set was for Coco. And it was as one-sided as the score line makes it seem. She hit eight winners, just one unforced error, and won 27 points to Nosokova's 11 points won. And Coco looked to continue that momentum into the deciding set. She broke Noskova right off the bat and also did an excellent job to recover from Love 40 down the following game to hold to consolidate the break too. And I thought here Coco would continue to run away with the with the match. And Coco got out to a double break lead at 4-1. And at 4-1, she had a 30-all, I guess, advantage. It wasn't an advantage, but it was 30 all. And she played a sloppy service game to get broken. Noskova was solid, but I think mainly she won the points from Coco unforced airs from the ground. Now Goff had another chance the following game at 4-2. She led Noskova 1530 while the check was serving. And on that 1530 point, she flubbed a mid-court forehand. Although it was a slight a smart slice from Noskova, I think the slice to Goff's forehand gave her fits against Muhova as well. So that was smart. But Linda shut Coco out the next two points with some quality serves to put the pressure right back on the American. At 4-3, Coco once again failed to reach game point, but she did have a 30-yall and deuce, well, 30-all induced openings. No Skova hit a number of monster forehand returns off of Coco's first and second serves. And I think Coco was a bit too predictable here. I think, especially on the deuce side, she should have changed it up and went kick T on the first serve or at least body. That said, when you look at the actual match, this wasn't a terrible choke from Coco. Noscova deserves a lot of credit again for playing some great tennis. Like this shot was very, very good. Then golf once again got to 30 all the next game at four all, but Linda hit two perfectly placed serves to get out of trouble and hold. And at five all, Coco had dues. And here Coco had a shot, but she sent a backhand second serve for turn long, which you just cannot do. And then Noscova hit an unreturnable ace to edge ahead. Now to me, the tiebreak brought Coco's most chokiest or biggest choke moments because she had three love and four-two leads. And at 4-2, Coco, you could tell she was feeling it a little bit. She had a pretty weak second serve, followed by a decelerated forehand that went wide. And I think the backhand, it definitely let her down for the rest of the tiebreaker. The last four points of the match she lost were from backhand errors. I do think it was a bit of a footwork issue, although some of the backhands I think she could have benefited from incorporating a slice backhand. I know that Coco really doesn't have that shot too much in her repertoire. I mean, she has it, but she's just not comfortable using it. And it's understandable because her backhand is so strong, but still, I think, especially when you're dealing with a player like no like Noscova who enjoys pace, and Coco's backhand, a lot of times, is nothing but pace. She doesn't really change it up as much. That could have been a good play. And a slice backhand or something different, maybe even a high top spin backhand, could have made the difference for golf in this match between win or lose. But overall, I think it was a good effort from Coco, despite dealing with that illness. Although I don't think illness is why she lost this match. She did have an opportunity here to pad some points before Rome and Roland Garros, as she will be depend defending about 2,600 points in those tournaments coming up, and she will now drop down to number four in the world. Igosh Fiantech takes her spot at number three. And I think it's definitely disappointing for Coco because she was playing really well this entire tournament to me. She actually ended up winning 10 more points than Linda did and had a better winner to unforce error ratio, 30 to 27. And she hit more aces, 13 aces to Linda's eight, but still lost the match. That's just devastating, but she just did not win the most important points. And it's kind of odd because this was some of Coco's best form all season, but she doesn't have much to show for it. It's a fourth round exit. Still, based on her level right now, I think she's very much a title favorite for Roland Garros. I'm not really concerned. She's making great strides. Her serve is honestly as good as it's looked so far. Her serve was really impressive against Noscova, but it's just a few things, just a few tiny things that just made the difference between a win and a loss. And I hope maybe down the line her team can try to build more variety with her game, her backhand, like I mentioned before. But yeah, focusing on Noskova though, this is her fourth 1000 quarterfinal of her career in the second of this year after ending wells, where she made the semifinals. Up next for her is Red Hot Marta Kostyuk, who extended her win streak to eight in a row after dominating Katie McNally 6'2, 6'3. She's only dropped 14 games in her three matches thus far in Madrid. So I'm looking forward to this one. This should be a great match. Both these women are big ball strikers. I might give the slight edge to Kostuk, though, based on just her run of form. It gives her run to the Brisbane Finals the way she's playing right now. Now, Mira Andreva was in a very similar position to Coco in her match against Anabandar. Andreva also led her opponent by a double break in the deciding set before being pushed to a tie break. Although Andreva did come out on top with the win, taking a 6-7, 6-3, 7-6 victory. Now, Mira's near choke was honestly worse because she led the Hungarian 5-1 in the third set and also had a match point at 5-3, but could not convert. And Bondor played a strong point to save match point, but it's not like with Noskova where Linda was just so good. Mira flopped when serving for the match at both 5-2 and 5-4. She has some pretty poor double faults with bad deceleration, also some messy miss hits. And she had two breakback points at 5-all, but still could not convert. And she ended the game with a horrible, horrible overhead miss. Then that's when we saw the Mir Rublev meltdown, as I like to call it, as she threw her racket and during the changeover, she told her team, I'm not a champion. I will lose this match. Ironically, Mira helped serve at love the following game and eventually won the tiebreak at 7-5 on her third match point chance. And Mira broke down after the win and still a great mental effort despite the choking to win this in a tiebreaker because she has had some, probably she suffered from PTSD from tiebreakers, from third set tiebreakers, because she has some brutal deciding set tiebreak losses this year. So again, great effort from her. She's now into her third straight Madrid quarterfinal where she'll take on Layla Fernandez, who swept aside Anne Lee 6'3, 6'2. Layla's been having a pretty good red clay season. She made the Stuttgart quarterfinals where she really should have beaten Rabacana, but now she has a chance at redemption here to go around further. The head-to-head between these two, Fernandez and Andreva, is tied at one apiece. Both their meetings were in 2023, and Mira won their match here in Madrid that year in straight sets in the round of 16. I might give her the edge here too, but regardless, it won't be easy. I'm looking forward to this one too. The last match of the day was really a surprising one as lucky loser Anastasia Patapova upset second seed Atlanta Robacina 7664 for her fourth WTA 1000 quarterfinal. Potopova played a good match and she showed why she's now what seven and one on red clay this year in terms of tour-level matches. Because she she was excellent. She went for her shots and did a great job at changing direction. And I think her some of her weaknesses, the forehand and serve, held up well in the tight moment. So that was impressive for me. Now with Miss Robacana, she really had no business losing this match. At least she had no business losing this match in straight sets. She played. I think she really played. She had a 5-3 lead in the first set where she served for the first set, but played a horrible, horrible service game to get broken at love. Then she had a 15-30 look the very next game, but made some poor forehand unforced errors, and that forehand let her down. It's really let her down this entire tournament. She ended up with 56 unforced errors to 22 winners. She really never looked sharp in this tournament, and still she had her opportunities to win this match in straight sets. She had a whole set point in the first set tiebreaker and was up a break in the second set 4-2. But yeah, after she lost the 4-2 game, her game went completely off the rails. Just it was it was bad. The forehand flew on her a lot, and I think the Alta 2 perhaps had something to do with it. Maybe she was a little bit fatigued from the tough opening round matches against Rusa and Zhang, as well as she just won Stuttgart. So I think eventually it was gonna come times where she wasn't gonna move on. I think she was playing on barred time here in this tournament. But she shouldn't be too disappointed in herself. She still is gonna be a favorite for Roland Garrett. Not the favorite, but a favorite. And I think now she has more time to rest up for Roman Roland Garrett, so that's good for her. But it's also good news for Sabalenka, of course, because now I think her number one spot is a little bit more secure, and it will be especially more secure if she goes on to win this title. But now we get a quarterfinal that very few people, if anyone at all, predicted as Porto Pova will take on former Ward number one Carolina Plushkova, who defeated Solana Sierra in straight sets for her first WTA 1000 quarterfinals since Dubai 2024. So it's great to see Plushkova back playing great tennis, and with the day of rest, maybe she can do her big one. I'm looking forward to seeing how what she can do here. Now, talking about the men's side, I'm not really gonna spend too much time because it's not as much to talk about. No men's matches went the distance. It was all all straight set matches, and all three of the qualifiers who were in action today fell. 21-year-old Spaniard Daniel Merida, his run ended against Stefano City Paz, who beat him 6'4-6-3. This is Stefanos' first tournament where he won three matches at since Dubai 2025. Up next for him is the defending champion, Kaspar Root, who has looked really good thus far. He's knocked down two Spaniards in a row, just dominating them. He first beat Munar in the opening round, only dropping one game. And he just defeated Davidovich Falkina 6 3 6 1. Nikolai Boudkov care lost to the seventh seed Danil Medvedev 6 3 6 2. Medvedev now takes on 10th seed Flavio Caboli, who defeated 21 year old Adolfo Daniel Vallejo from Paraguay by a score of 6 3 6. Two as well. Now, a young rising star who did score an upset win was 21-year-old Belgian Alex Bloch, who defeated fifth seed Felix Soger Al-Yassim 7-6-6-3 for his first top 10 win. It was also his first top five win, of course. And people said that he looks like Milo Schraunich. Um, and I see it, and like Miloch, Alexander Bloch has a great serve as well. And he his serve was firing in this match against Felix. He wasn't broken at all. He only faced one break point and he won 83% of his first serve points. And he has also a huge forehand, solid backhand, and he's a great mover for being six foot three, six foot four. And Bloch has had a low-key, very, very good clay season so far. This is now his second straight ATP 1000 round of 16, and he lost in the round of 16 in Munich the week after making the round of 16 in Monte Carlo, but he lost to Ben Shelton in Munich in a really tight two-set match that was 6'4-7-6. And of course, Shelton was the eventual champion. So that goes to show that Bloch he has the game. And I think that Alexander will likely crack top 50 if he were to win his next match against Francisco Sorundolo. Sorundalo is still going to be the favorite here. He swept aside Luciano Dardari 6'2, 6'3. Second seed, Alexander Zverev. He defeated Terrence Atman 6'3-7-6. Although he kind of was close to choking a little bit as he was up 5-2 in the second set and had a match point at 5-2. And he did start to deal with an apparent back issue towards the end of the match. So that's something to look forward or look out for. He now takes on Jakub Menjik, who defeated Karen Hatchinoff 6-4-7-6. So this will be their first meeting. I don't know. I think Zerev might be in trouble with this one because Menjik has a lot of game. But looking forward to the matches tomorrow. On the Monolo Santana Stadium, there's Yannick Center and Cam Nori who open up play there. It will be their first meeting. Followed by them is Leila Fernandez, who takes on Mira Andreva. Then Vitkopshiva takes on the Rising Sensation Rafael Hodar. Then in the night session, there is Arena Sabalanka against Haley Baptiste and Jakob Menchik against Alexander Zverev. On Arancha Sanchez Stadium, there is Archer Fees who takes on Tomas Martin Echvery, followed by Yuri Leheshka and Lorenzo Musetti. Another good one will be Citi Pass and Rude, Stelandalo and Bloch, and then Medvedev Kaboli. So definitely, hopefully, it should be a strong day of play for the men's on the men's side. Something actually worth talking about extensively. Because I really didn't say much about the men's today, because the woman definitely outsold. But that is all I have for this Madrid Open recap video. Let me know your thoughts on all the stuff I covered in this video from Sablanka Osaka as well as Coco and Rabakana's losses. Also, make sure you subscribe and click that notification bell so you're notified whenever I post my next Madrid recap video. But thank y'all so much for watching and for your support. And I'll see you all next time here on Christian's Court.