Will the Belarussian reach the final at Roland Garros as well?
Aryna Sabalenka, who could theoretically become the new world number one at Roland Garros, stormed into the semifinals of the French Open with five straight 2-0 wins. This is the third consecutive Grand Slam tournament in which the Belarusian has reached the top four. Considering her record of 34 wins and only five losses this year, we’d also tip Karolína Muchová to reach the final against Aryna Sabalenka, the winner of this year’s Australian Open.
Meanwhile, it’s a first for both women. Neither the Czech nor the Belarussian had ever made it past the third round at Roland Garros. Now one of the two players will even punch her ticket to the grand final, which will take place on Saturday and determine the 127th overall winner on the red clay of Paris. In the run-up to the duel between Karolína Muchová and Aryna Sabalenka, our prediction goes to the Belarussian
In the only direct meeting between the two players to date, Aryna Sabalenka also won 2-0 against Karolína Muchová, although admittedly this clash dates back to autumn 2019, when the two women also met in the semifinals of the WTA Elite Trophy, which is also known as the B-WM. A tournament, by the way, in which the Belarussian also prevailed in the subsequent final – perhaps a good omen for the 25-year-old?
In any case, we firmly expect Aryna Sabalenka to reach the final, and in this context we are betting on an outright 2:0 victory for the reigning Australian Open champion.
Karolína Muchová – Statistics & current form
Current world ranking: 43
Position in the seedings: unseeded
The 26-year-old Czech Karolína Muchová is the only unseeded player left at the 2023 French Open. Now she also wants to achieve the feat of making it to the final.
It would be the first major final that the player from Olomouc would reach. So far, she has only reached the quarter-finals of Wimbledon twice at Grand Slam level and the semi-finals of the Australian Open in 2021. She also has only three quarter-finals on record at WTA 1000 tournaments.
Won 24 of 31 singles matches in 2023
Accordingly, the impressive run that the WTA World No. 43 put together in Paris came as a surprise and may well have positive implications for Karolína Muchová’s future.
By reaching the semi-finals, the Czech will move into the top 20 of the WTA world rankings for the first time in her career. She is currently ranked number 19 in the virtual live table. Already at the Wimbledon Championships, the 26-year-old would thus start from the seeded list, which could pave the way for another good run. Currently, Muchová stands at 24 wins from 31 completed singles matches in 2023.
Thankful draw after convincing opening win
However, Karolína Muchová’s betting on the Olomouc player reaching the final against Aryna Sabalenka is not all that lucky. The Czech has only won one title on the WTA Tour in her career – the Korea Open 2019, a comparatively small WTA International.
What’s more, with the exception of the first round, in which she knocked out a reigning top-10 player in Maria Sakkari, she has had a comparatively easy road to Roland Garros. Most recently, she even faced two players ranked outside the Top 100 in Elina Avanesyan (WTA 134) in the last 16 and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (WTA 333) in the quarter-finals.
Aryna Sabalenka – Statistics & current form
Current ranking in the World Ranking: 2
Position in the seedings: 2
The 25-year-old Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka started as one of the co-favourites for the title at the 127th French Open women’s singles. The player from Minsk has already won the Australian Open this year and has now won 13 singles titles on the WTA Tour.
At Roland Garros, the current world number two could even become the world number one for the first time in her career. All she has to do is perform better than the current leader Iga Swiatek.
34 of 39 singles matches won in 2023
Not a few fans are longing for the dream final between the Belarusian and the Pole. A pairing that just happened in the final of the Madrid Open on clay. There, Aryna Sabalenka won 2-1 against the high-flyer, which clearly underlines the 25-year-old’s strong form.
In the run-up to the semi-final between Karolína Muchová and Aryna Sabalenka, the odds are clearly in favour of the Belarussian, who has won 34 matches from 39 singles matches this year and has already recorded three tournament victories in 2023.
Scored on second serve 72% of the time in quarter-finals
At the French Open, the player from Minsk, who had never made it past the third round at Roland Garros in the past five events, even went without dropping a set on her way to the semi-finals, which was mainly due to her almost unbreakable service game.
In the quarter-finals against the former world champion Elina Svitolina (WTA 192), who had slipped in the rankings, Aryna Sabalenka reached an almost unbelievable quota: 25 times she had to get over the second serve. She scored 18 times – 72%. Nevertheless, she surrendered one service game in the 2-0 win. However, the Belarusian only conceded one break point…
Karolína Muchová – Aryna Sabalenka Direct comparison / H2H record
Head to head: 0:1
Only one meeting has taken place between the two ladies. At the WTA Elite Trophy 2019, Aryna Sabalenka beat Karolína Muchová in the semifinals in a close match 2:0 (7:5 and 7:6). Now the two players will face each other on clay for the first time.
Karolína Muchová – Aryna Sabalenka tip
With Karolína Muchová against Aryna Sabalenka, our prediction is for the Belarusian, who was crowned Grand Slam winner for the first time at this year’s Australian Open and just won the Major title at the Madrid Open. There, the 25-year-old, who is often said to be a hard-court specialist, was also in excellent form on clay and defeated the current high-flyer and world number one Iga Swiatek 2-1 in the final.
Although the Czech challenger hasn’t had too many successes so far, we expect Aryna Sabalenka to build on her stellar 2023 with another 2-0 win to reach her second successive Grand Slam final.
