Aryna Sabalenka had to dig in on Thursday, but the world No. 1 did enough to open her Madrid Open title defense with a straight-sets win, defeating American Peyton Stearns 7-5, 6-3 to reach the third round in the Spanish capital.
The three-time Madrid champion advanced to the third round there for the fifth time and extended her current winning streak to 13 matches. She will face Romania’s Jaqueline Cristian next.
The scoreline looked tidy, but the match was anything but comfortable for Sabalenka. Stearns broke early and repeatedly pressured the top seed, forcing her to produce timely returns and steadier play in the key moments.
Sabalenka converted four of 12 break points in the one-hour, 35-minute contest and saved two break points while serving out the match. Afterward, she said she was pleased to get through a difficult opener and felt better as the match went on.
Madrid has long been one of Sabalenka’s strongest clay-court stops, and even with some uneven stretches, she again showed why her game is so dangerous in the altitude of the Caja Mágica. Her power eventually wore Stearns down, especially on second-serve returns, and the defending champion closed with enough authority to keep her bid for another title on track.
Elsewhere in the women’s draw, 2024 champion Iga Swiatek cruised past qualifier Daria Snigur 6-1, 6-2 in just 61 minutes and moved on to face Ann Li in the third round. Seventh-seeded Elina Svitolina, however, was knocked out by Hungary’s Anna Bondar, who claimed the first Top 10 victory of her career with a 6-3, 6-4 upset.
On the men’s side, Paraguay’s Adolfo Daniel Vallejo produced one of the day’s standout results by beating former world No. 3 Grigor Dimitrov 6-4, 6-4 in his ATP Masters 1000 debut. The 21-year-old became just the second Paraguayan to record a Masters 1000 win since the format began in 1990 and will next play American Learner Tien.
