Published: January 9, 2026 at 4:18 pm
If Friday’s first Brisbane quarterfinal had been a boxing match, Karolina Muchova would have taken the first round, Elena Rybakina the second and the third, or the decider, would have been considered too close to call.
But despite the two Top 20 players trading blows for more than two hours, this was tennis, not boxing, and there were no split decisions to determine the winner. Instead, Muchova definitively snapped Rybakina’s 13-match winning streak and earned her first win over the former Wimbledon champion since 2019 with a 6-2, 2-6, 6-4 victory at Pat Rafter Arena.
“I’m just happy to be playing again, to be out here,” Muchova said after the match. “I missed a few years in Australia that I didn’t even come because of injury, so it’s just great that I’m here and enjoying playing with my team and friends here.”
With the win, she booked a semifinal showdown with Aryna Sabalenka, after the World No.1 defeated Madison Keys 6-3, 6-3 a few hours later to secure her own spot in the final four.
It marks Muchova’s first WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz semifinal appearance since last February in Dubai.
Talent has never been the issue for Muchova. Availability has. The Czech has long been snakebit by injuries, but when she’s healthy, or close to it, she’s capable of giving anyone trouble. On Friday, that “anyone” was Rybakina.
Muchova began her offensive early, earning two break points, the first of 11 she would generate throughout the match, in the opening game. Rybakina escaped with timely serving, but her serve faltered at 2-all when a double fault on break point handed Muchova a 3-2 lead.
It was the first of four straight games won by the 29-year-old, who closed out the first set in 35 minutes by playing patient, disciplined tennis. She finished the first set with just five unforced errors to Rybakina’s 18.
Rybakina flipped the script in the second set to force a decider, where neither player could separate in the first eight games. But Muchova seized control with a break to love for a 5-4 lead, then served out the match, sealing the win with a forehand winner.
It’s hard to pinpoint why, but there’s something undeniably pure about watching Sabalenka and Keys mash the heck out of the ball, point after point. Even on a day when neither was at her best, the sheer power on display — forehand, backhand, first serve, it didn’t matter — was unmistakable.
But with great power comes great responsibility, and few players harness their strength more effectively than Sabalenka.
Despite Keys throwing everything at her, the Belarusian never blinked. After Keys held for a 3-2 lead, Sabalenka responded by reeling off four straight games to take the first set, closing it out with her trademark backhand down the line on her third set point.
In the second set, Keys appeared to dial back the aggression after seven costly double faults in the opener, just as Sabalenka decided to crank hers up. Sabalenka took more risks on serve, firing five aces after hitting none in the first set, and pounced on Keys’ increasingly conservative second serves. On one such occasion, Sabalenka vultured Key’s second serve and crushed a forehand winner down the line for a 3-1 lead.
“I was trying to put as much pressure as I can on her serve,” Sabalenka said in her on-court interview. “That’s all I was thinking about, and I think I did it well. I put so much pressure back on her because yeah, she’s aggressive, but then I tried to put all that speed back at her.”
Keys kept at it, though, breaking back for 3-2 and staying in the mix with several highlight-reel winners of her own. She actually finished with more winners than Sabalenka (25 to 20), but the damage caused by the vulnerability of her second serve proved too much to overcome, allowing Sabalenka to run away with the victory and advance to the semifinals to face Muchova.
Eala and Wang face off in Auckland semifinals
Two players looking to win their first WTA Tour singles title will face off in the semifinals of the ASB Classic in Auckland after No. 5 seed Alexandra Eala and No. 7 seed Wang Xinyu won their quarterfinal matches in straight sets on Friday.
Alexandra Eala makes history everywhere she goes as the only Filipina to currently hold a position in the PIF WTA Rankings
For the first time in three career head-to-head meetings, Eala was a winner over Magda Linette, the No. 4 seed, 6-3, 6-2 while Wang advanced to the final four when Francesca Jones retired due to a right thigh injury while trailing 6-4, 4-3, 30-0.
Each woman will be bidding for a place in her second career tour-level singles final when they face off for the first time, having each played for a trophy during last summer’s grass-court season.
Eala began her first-ever appearance trailing Donna Vekic by a set in the first round before coming back to win 4-6, 6-4, 6-4. Since then, she’s lost just seven games. She defeated Petra Marcinko in the quarterfinals 6-0, 6-2 before beating Linette in 1 hour and 37 minutes, a match in which she only trailed 1-0 after the opening game.
Eala was particularly impressive on return against Linette, creating 14 break-point chances in victory. She converted six, and saved five of the seven she faced, in the clean victory, in which she won eight of nine games at one stage.
“I do what I can and if I see and opening, I think it’s important I go for it. Magda is such an experienced player and I had difficulties playing against her before, so I’m just happy to see my level increase and improve,” Eala said.
Wang also rallied from a set down in her first-round win, against American Caty McNally, and hasn’t dropped a set since. The World No. 57 broke serve early in both sets against Jones, who battled throughout despite increasing struggles with her leg throughout the contest. While Eala and Linette played as recently as last summer, the meeting between Jones and Wang was notable as they last played as juniors, nearly a decade ago at Wimbledon.
The 24-year-old Shenzhen native hopes to break a string of futility in hard-court semifinals when she faces Eala. A runner-up in Berlin on grass last summer, Wang is otherwise 0-8 in tour-level semifinals, all of which have been played on hard courts. And in those matches, she’s only won one set.
While Eala makes history everywhere she goes as the only Filipina to currently hold a position in the PIF WTA Rankings, Wang is hoping to make some recent history for China at the storied WTA 250. The only Chinese player to ever reach the singles final is former Grand Slam semifinalist Zheng Jie, who won the 2012 title.
