Madrid '26: Baptiste stuns Sabalenka for a LEGENDARY win, Sinner vs Jodar Preview

Hailey Baptiste already earned one of the wins of the season with a three-set thriller victory vs Aryna Sabalenka in the Madrid Open quarterfinals. Baptiste saved SIX match points to topple the world number one and defending champion. Meanwhile on the men's side, Jannik Sinner and Rafael Jodar set up a QF clash that could be just as intriguing. 

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Transcript

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Hayley Marie Baptiste. Mind you, I just made that middle name up, but I think having a middle name gives it an edgier effect. But, anyways, I know I promised in my last video that this one would be more focused on the men's, but I'm sorry, this is the Haley Baptiste show today. Arena Sabalinka had only lost one match this entire season before today. She was red hot. She was riding a 15-match win streak on the heels of winning the Sunshine Double, and she was the Queen of Madrid and a heavy title favorite. She'd reached the finals here the last three years and was the defending champion and gone for a record fourth title in Spain. She'd also won 10 matches in a row against Americans. But the seventh ranked American in world number 32, Haley Baptiste, snapped all those streaks, scoring a 2-6-6276 win for the books. Fair warning, a lot of this video will be about this match alone, but I will give some attention. Don't worry, I'll talk about the men's side and preview that upcoming clash between Yannick Center and Rafa Hodar. Hola, me llamou Kishan Bass Night, E Bienvenido Akishin's court, donde cubre el tennis des de todos los Angulos. If you have not yet already, make sure you subscribe and click the notification bell so you're notified whenever I post more tennis content. So it was not really a bad day at the office at all for Arena Sabalenka. She came out and played sharper actually than she did against Naomi Osaka yesterday. It was a very good opening set from her. And Baptiste level was high in the opening set as well. But Arena was just too good. She was peaking, her timing on her shots was impeccable. And Sablanka dropped just two points behind her serve in the opening in her opening three service games. Midway through the opening set, Haley's coach Will advised her to make a key adjustment that really turned this entire match around. He told Haley to take a deeper return positioning, even on the second serve. And that worked wonders almost immediately. At 4-2, Haley generated two breakpoints, but Salinka was able to dig herself out of trouble, and she broke the following game to take the set. Salinka, though, had to fight for her life throughout the entire match, the rest of the match. She faced a break point in every service game in the second set, and she was broken three times in the second set alone. The first game of the second set was huge. Sabalenka had a game point, but she flubbed a backhand setter volley and then hit back-to-back double faults to hand back teach the break. And that was huge and important because Haley's confidence from then on surge. She won 71% of her first serve points in the second set compared to Sabalenka, who won just 39% of her first serve points in set number two. And that's a stark contrast for Marina winning 77% of her first serve points in the opening set. Baptiste returning deserves a lot of credit because Haley's return was unbelievable. And she's clearly very strong because she was able to generate so much speed and weight of shot with the forehand return, despite returning from so deep behind the baseline. And she was still able to get it back deep on Arena. Oftentimes she had the upper hand off of her return. And I think that's the trend we're gonna see with more women and of them taking a deeper return positioning, especially against the bigger servers. Sabalenka and Pagula did it well against Elena Robacana and Miami. Elena Gabriela Russa did it well in Madrid. And I think that's where Naomi Osaka messed up against Sabalenka. Oftentimes she took the return too early, kind of stood too close to the baseline instead of giving herself more time on the return to hit a higher quality, higher percentage return back in play. But I also think that backing up and relying more on spin and shape is much more effective on the clay as the ball will bounce higher up out of opponent's strike zone. And it's also a harder shot for opponents to attack. Players would have more time, the returner would have more time to defend the next shot with it being on clay and the ball is a little bit slower. But I think that Sabalanka could have thrown in some serve and volleys to combat Haley's deeper return positioning, especially if she was able to get it to Haley's backhand, which she didn't do as much in the second and third sets compared to the first set. And I think that's really where she went wrong. And I think the two love game in the third set was a missed opportunity for Sabalenka to do some serve and volleys, at least swing volleys, or at least something. But Baptiste, meanwhile, she was not afraid to serve and volleys. She was so ballsy because she served in volley on her second serve on match points on multiple occasions. I was really, I was impressed. And I thought that she might double fault on a few of those match points because she does have the tendency to do that, namely from the benchage match. And she did that a few times in the crucial moments in this match against Salanka, but she she hit some good serves. And on the fourth match point, Haley goaded Sal Blanca into going for that riskier backhand return down the line. And I think that's because she saw Haley coming forward. So that alone, the optics of seeing your opponent come come forward does a lot. I think that was really smart from Haley. I do think that Sablanka, though, could have benefited from stepping up and taking the return earlier because she wasn't as effective, in my opinion, taking that deeper return positioning compared to Haley, because Back T's kick serve was just more effective and it jumped out of the strike zone more compared to Sabalenka's in this match. And I think Sabalenka's match point at 6'5 in the tiebreaker, the only match point that she had on her serve, it was her best shot at winning the match. She pulled the backhand on the run just wide. And I think that right there was a testament to Haley's improved fitness and movement that Salenka felt that she had to go that close to the line to get the point. I do think though, in the breaker, namely at 5'4, Sal Blanca gave up the ghost. And in that 5-4 point, she had a sloppy forehand miss and she had Haley on the ropes this point. But I think incorporating some variety, I was waiting for her to use the drop shot with Haley kind of deeper behind the court, but she didn't do that. And I think definitely that was an underutilized shot for Salenka. She did not use that nearly enough. I actually think she used it more on Miami, which is interesting because you think Clay will make the drop shot even more effective. But Baptiste, for sure, she won the variety war by far. I already mentioned the servant volleys, but thinking back to that fifth match match point that Sabalenka had, Haley was unbelievably clutch. Hitting that drop shot right after the serve, that's unbelievable, right there. And I think Baptiste, she does have more leeway to use the drop shot because she hits her backhand slice more often than much of the tour. And her using that backhand slice so often gives her better disguise. Because sometimes, if you're her opponent, you think, okay, she's just gonna hit a regular deep backhand slice, but no, she can also throw in the drop shot, and that's what made Anjra Burst so effect so effective too when she was in her prime. The backhand slice, it was such an important shot for Haley in this match. And the thing is, Haley does not have a weak backhand at all. A few times she was cracking that backhand down the line, it was really an impressive shot, too. But the slice, she didn't really get too many direct errors from incorporating that shot because Sal Blanca handled it well, but she was able to get Arena out of position a few times. And Haley was so smart, she used a short backhand slice to direct it to Arena's backhand wing very well. And that was a smart shot because that shot in itself is very difficult to handle. Just thinking that how I would handle that shot, it's hard to hit an aggressive backhand cross-court shot on that shot. So sometimes the best play is to go up the line. And Sal Blanca did do that a number of times, but Haley was right there and was so smart, she went right back behind Salanka whenever she did go up the line a few times. Baptiste is just naturally gifted. That five all game in the third set was foolproof of that. Legendary. She opened it with a screaming forehand cross-court winner. Then she had a crazy good backhand passing shot up the line. Then at Deuce, Salanka hit a pretty good forehand angle cross-court to get Haley pulled off the court. And what did Baptiste do? Hit a screaming forehand winner down the line. Just unbelievable. A well, well deserved break there. Aside from Haley's unbelievable talent, her mental toughness really stood out to me the most in this match. Of course, the match point saves, but even before then, there were so many times where she could have thrown in the towel. She was down a break early in the third set. We cannot forget that. Then she had two separate break leads in the second in the third set at 4-3 and 6-5. And in those games, she definitely did not play that great. Yes, Sablinka deserves credit, but Baptiste, I think for sure, felt the moment of this being her biggest win of her career by far. Because again, she never even beaten a top five player before. But she was still able to shake it off. And I think the Belinda Bencic win helped a lot. Again, gotta talk about that one more time because in that match, she had six match points in the second set alone, wasn't able to convert, hit a few double faults to a match point, but was able to put it behind her and get the third and get the win in three sets. So I think having that win gave her a lot of confidence. And this win in particular would give her even more confidence. And I think now she can be unstoppable. I felt like a win like this was only a matter of time. She'd already taken sets off of Coco Goff and Elena Robacina this year. And I think the tour should be very afraid of Haley. If she plays like this, she's winning a slam, no doubt. Now that could be a big if because it's going to be harder for Haley to replicate this form. As she gets more eyes on her, that could be a difficult adjustment. But still, she played like she belongs in the top five. This entire week she's been playing top five level tennis, beating Paolini and Benchich and now Sabalenka. She's up to number 24 in the live rankings, and I believe she will crack top 20 if she wins the semifinal against Mira Andreva. I think she can take the title with this level, but Andreva next would not be that easy. Mira, she looked pretty good in her 7-6-6-3 victory over Leila Fernandez. Mira is also 11-1 on clay this season, and she has more experience in this stage of playing a 1000 semifinal. She's played and won both of her 1000 level semifinals. And this is Haley's first WTA 1000 semifinal. Albeit Mira has not played a big semifinal like this in a minute. So maybe she could feel their pressure. And we know that Mira sometimes is not the most mentally tough player. Andreva, she did dominate their loan meeting, which was at Woman in the third round last year by a score of 6'1, 6'3. Baptiste really didn't show up in that match. She was far too inconsistent, and I think she's a much different, much better player now compared to then. I think this one will be really tight. And just going off of form and in her level, I'm gonna go with Baptiste to take this one in three sets. Briefly talking about Sal Balenka and the takeaways for her, I think she'll for sure be disappointed. This was a great opportunity for her to win that record fourth Madrid title as she was the only top five player remaining in the draw. But I think she'll be fine and she will have more rest to go for that elusive Rome title. Maybe she can get another clay title aside from Madrid. I think moving forward, the serve needs to improve. It was okay in the first set, but it lost its power and its overall effectiveness in the second and third sets. Also, Sablanka might have lost her tiebreak edge, as now she's lost two tiebreaks in a row. She was the undisputed queen of tiebreaks. She still is, but that's going to be disappointing for her. And I think maybe that could give the tour hope when they go up against Arena and tiebreak. Because I feel like before she kind of had a little bit of an intimidation factor when it came time to play these breakers. Also, the world number one race will heat up with Sal Blanca's exit. She lost 785 points with her failing to defend this title, and now that shrinks the gap between her and Robacana to about 1,500 points. But that aside, gotta give praise to both Arena and Haley for putting on an exceptional match. This is gonna go down as right now, it's it's top two match of the year for me. I still think Sal Blanca Rabacana takes the cake, but honestly, I wouldn't argue with someone if they did put this one over. Cause the the sheer shock value, the upset, the the way she did it, saving six match points. I can I I wouldn't be mad at you if this was your match of the year. But let me know in the comments what y'all think. Is this match of the year or does that spot still belong to Sablanca, Robacana, and Indian Wells? But moving on to the men's side now. The quarterfinal we were all hoping for is confirmed as Yannick Center will take on 19-year-old Spanish phenom Rafael Hodar. That will be tomorrow at 10 a.m. Eastern Time. Yannick defeated Cam Nori 6'275 in their first ever tour level meeting. And you really never felt that Yannick was in danger throughout this match. He did get broken one time after he led 3-2. It was a bit of a poor service game from him, but he controlled it well in the end. That said, center serve has been great overall in Madrid. He's been hitting his spots well. He hit eight aces against Nori and he won 81% of his first serve points, 63% of his second serve points, and this the kick serve for him has been pretty effective. The ground game from Yannick has been okay. It hasn't been his best. His forehand does have a tendency to fly on him at times, and I think that could be due to the altitude in Spain. He has also been relying a little bit more on his variety center has. He's been hitting even more drop shots and using more serving volleys than in Monte Carlo. I'm wondering if that's just him wanting to kind of conserve himself as he has played a lot of tennis, or maybe he's possibly not as confident in his ground game. I'm not sure. But yeah, it's not been anything too exceptional from Yannick so far, but he hasn't really needed exceptional form yet. Now I'm wondering, will Yannick need that top exceptional form in his next match against Rafa Hodar? I don't know. Hodar, he earned his 12th win out of his last 13 matches when he took down Vitko Chiva 7-5-6 love. This was another excellent match from Hodar, a well-composed performance because he was the favorite in this one. He hit 16 winners, 16 unforced errors. He only faced two break points, which was at 3 all in the opening set. He was dominant on his serve. He won 70% of his first serve points and 83% of his second serve points, which is very impressive. Rafa's second serve is good, but I think Vit will be disappointed in himself that he didn't take advantage of those second serve opportunities. But I am very, very excited for center Hodar. Based on how he's playing, honestly, I think Rafa has a chance, at least to take a set. But I think he has a chance to win this match. I think he's playing top 10 level tennis, not only because of that win over an actual top 10 player, Demonor, although Alex arguably is not playing at a top 10 level right now, but still his entire clay run has been impressive. His only loss was against Arthur Feast in Barcelona, a tight three-set match in the semifinals. And Feast, he's number five in the race this year. So that is definitely not a bad loss at all for Rafa. I think Hodar has all the weapons to challenge Yannick. I think, like Center, he does everything very well. And they're pretty similar, low-key, in how they play. Both big serves, big forehands. They can do a lot with it. I mean, Rafa can for sure. He hits with heavy top spin, perhaps even sharper angles than Yannick can produce, although it's going to be close, but he can also attack very well off that side. And his backhand, I think, can hold its own against center's backhand. I think the biggest difference though between them is that center still has a bit of a variety edge. I think he's more willing to use his variety. Rafa, he's not afraid to use drop shots as well, but Yannick is a little bit more OD right now. I think that will be a good play against Hodar, and I expect him to use that quite a few times against the young Spaniard. I also think that Center's return will be very important. I'm not expecting him, Rafa, to win as many second serve points as he did against Kupchiva or Fonteca, and I think that could be a big difference maker in this match. I think the biggest test for Hodar might be how he handles the occasion. This definitely is going to be the biggest match of his career. His first match against a top five player, let alone against the world number one. Also, his first ATP 1000 quarterfinal, let alone he's playing at home. So it's going to be a big test to see if he rises to the occasion and if he is a big match player, which I think he is, but we'll see for sure tomorrow. Again, I can see Rafa actually do his big one and take this match, but I think Yannick and his experience overall will get him through. So I'm picking center to take this one in three sets. I know the center fans are gonna be livid that I said that Yannick's gonna be pushed to three, but it is what it is. The other men's quarterfinal that will be played tomorrow will be between Yuri Leheshka and Arthur Feast. Feast is now eight and oh on clay this year so far. He defeated 25th seed Tomas Martin Echveri, 6'3, 6'4. Laheshka, meanwhile, earned a very good 6'3-6-3 victory over Lorenzo Musetti. The head-to-head between Leheshka and Feast is tied at two apiece. They've played twice already this year. Laheshka won their Miami Open semifinal, dominating Feast 2-2, whereas Arthur won their Doha match in the quarterfinals from earlier in the year, 3-3. I think I might give Feast the edge. Obviously, both guys are playing great right now. I do think in Miami, Feast was a bit possibly gassed from the Paul match, not to mention Laheshka was treeing. He was playing exceptional. Not to say he can't bring that form here, but I think that'll be a tougher ask. But it's gonna be a tight one for me to call. But yeah, I'm having Archer take this one in three sets. Defending champion Casper Rood, his title defense is alive, but barely. He came out on top of one of the most thrilling matches of the tournament. He beat Stefano City Pass 6'7, 7-6-7-6. Casper had to save two match points while serving down 3-5 in the third set. He was also 0-4-11 on break points before he finally broke at the very last minute at 4-5 when Citipas tried to serve for the match. And he was able to get it done on the breaker to take the match in just under three hours. Disappointing loss for Citi Pass. I think this could have been his I'm back tournament, but props to Rude for an exceptional win. And up next for Casper is 21-year-old Belgian Alexander Bloch, who scored a very, very good 7-6-6-2 victory over Francisco Sarondalo. Bloch beat Felix Auger Alissim yesterday for his first top 10 and top five win. But to me, this victory was more impressive to me. Sarundolo is very, very good on clay. He made the semifinals here in Madrid last year, and Fran really should have won the first set. He had three set points when he was up 6'5, and another one at 7'6 in the tiebreaker, and I think that one was on his serve. But Blox was clutch, like he has been all week. He saved all eight break points that he faced. And I'm very excited for the ATP. Blocks has the game, he has the serve and the mind, and you can see him have success on every surface. But Klay maybe could be his best. I don't know. He's already seven and two on the year on this surface, not including Monte Carlo qualifying. And those two losses came against both top 10 players, Demonor and Monte Carlo and Shelton in Munich. So I think Blocks has a shot to not only win this match against Casper, but to reach the final. And like imagine if we get a Hodar Blocks final, y'all. Like that would be quite something. But the other bottom half quarterfinal is between Flavio Kaboli and Alexander Zverev. Both men earned quality three-set wins. Kaboli defeated Danil Medvedev 6'3, 5'7, 6'4 to secure his first ATP 1000 quarterfinal. Kaboli was up a set and a break at 4-2 in the second set, but maybe he thought the moment. I don't know. Medvedev did have his chances when he was up 4-3-30 love in the second set. It was on Kaboli's serve though. But after that, Medi only won one more point for the rest of the match. Zverev meanwhile recovered from a breakdown in the deciding set before downing 23rd seed Jakob Menjik 6'4, 6'7, 6'3. This would be Zverev and Kaboli's fourth career meeting, and Zverev leased the head-to-heads 2-1. Kaboli, though, won their last meeting, which was about a week ago in the Munich semifinals, by a score of 6'3-6-3. Although I think Zverev will get his revenge and take this one in three sets. That is all I have for this video. Let me know what you think about Baptiste's excellent legendary win over Sabalanka. And do you think that she'll continue the run all the way to the title? As well as let me know your thoughts on the men's side and who you have coming out on top of that center holdar match. Again, make sure you subscribe and click that notification bell so you're notified whenever I post my next Madrid update video. Thank you all so much for watching and for your support. And I will see you next time here on Christians Court.