ORDER OF PLAY
CENTRE COURT -- 10:00 a.m. start
[8] Hayley CARTER (USA) / Luisa STEFANI (BRA) vs. Laura SIEGEMUND (GER) / Vera ZVONAREVA (RUS)
Not before 12:00 Noon
[9] Maria SAKKARI (GRE) vs. [4] Aryna SABALENKA (BLR)
Marta KOSTYUK (UKR) vs. Veronika KUDERMETOVA (RUS)
[5] Shuko AOYAMA (JPN) / Ena SHIBAHARA (JPN) vs. Sofia KENIN (USA) / Ajla TOMLJANOVIC (AUS)
Motivation Monday 💪#AbuDhabiWTA pic.twitter.com/JktirjssjU
— wta (@WTA) January 11, 2021
MATCH POINTS
No.4 seed Aryna Sabalenka brings a 3-1 head-to-head lead into her semifinal battle with No.9 seed Maria Sakkari at the Abu Dhabi WTA Women's Tennis Open. Sabalenka has won their last three meetings, and the last two of those wins for the Belarusian took place in the Middle East last year, in Dubai and Doha.
Head to Head
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Sabalenka has extended her career-best winning streak to 13 straight match-wins with her quarterfinal victory over Elena Rybakina. In her most recent Middle East event prior to this week, she won the title in Doha last year (defeating Sakkari en route).
Sabalenka is aiming for her 13th career WTA singles final. She has won eight of her 12 previous finals, including the two back-to-back titles to end last season, in Ostrava and Linz, which kicked off her current winning streak.
Sakkari earned the 11th Top 10 win of her career by defeating top seed Sofia Kenin in the quarterfinals, and now is aiming for her 12th victory over a Top 10 opponent against World No.10 Sabalenka.
World No.22 Sakkari is seeking her third WTA singles final. She reached her first final at San Jose in 2018, then clinched her first title at Rabat in 2019.
"That was a really tough time in my life. I was really at my lowest. I had to go through depression, never talked about it.”
— WTA Insider (@WTA_insider) January 10, 2021
18yo Marta Kostyuk on how she finally let go of the past and is now ready to step back into the spotlight.
Read: https://t.co/obw518bTlZ pic.twitter.com/36dgRQsvXG
Veronika Kudermetova and Marta Kostyuk will face off for the first time, in a clash between unseeded players. The winner of the match will advance to her very first WTA singles final.
18-year-old Kostyuk, in fact, has reached her first WTA singles semifinal this week, courtesy of her win over Sara Sorribes Tormo in the quarterfinals. The Ukrainian, currently two spots off of her best-ever ranking of World No.97, will set a new career-high ranking after this week when they are updated next Monday. By reaching the semifinals, Kostyuk is projected to enter the Top 80.
Kudermetova's quarterfinal upset of No.2 seed Elina Svitolina -- her second win over Svitolina in their two meetings -- was the third Top 5 win of her career. Along with her previous victory over World No.5 Svitolina at 2019 Moscow, she also upset then-World No.3 Karolina Pliskova at the 2020 Western and Southern Open.
This will be Kudermetova's fifth WTA semifinal, as she attempts to make her first championship match. Her most recent WTA semifinal came at Hobart in 2020, where she fell to Zhang Shuai.
