“Miami Tournament”: Romanian Cristia achieves the surprise and defeats Sabalenka

Romanian Sorana Cirstea, ranked 74th in the world, achieved a heavy-caliber surprise by defeating Belarusian Arina Sabalenka, ranked second in the world, 6-4, 6-4, on Wednesday, on her way to reaching the semi-finals of the Miami Millennium Tennis Championships.
Sabalenka, the winner of the Australian Open earlier this year, entered the match as an extraordinary candidate to emerge victorious, but she made many mistakes and showed a lot of tension during the exchanges.
On the other hand, Cirstia (32 years old), who did not lose any group in this tournament, reached this role in this category of tournaments, for the first time since 2013, specifically in the Canadian Toronto Games, when she lost to American Serena Williams.
“I really can’t find the right words to express what happened,” said Kirstia. I went into the game hoping it was going to be a tough game. I tried to stand up to it.”
She added, “I am very happy with my performance today, frankly, I did not expect this result.”
And the Romanian succeeded in taking advantage of the weightlessness of the Belarusian, and broke her serve twice in the first set to win it in 36 minutes.
Sabalenka lost her serve at the beginning of the second set, but she corrected the situation, before committing mistakes again, especially the double ones, when the serve was in her possession (6 times); What allowed Kristia to decide the outcome in her favor.
Kirstia, who is seeking to win her third title in her career, will meet in the semi-finals with Czech Petra Kvitova or Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova.
Cirstia’s level began to improve since she contracted with the Swedish coach Thomas Johansson, so she reached the quarter-finals of the Indian Wells tournament, and on her way defeated the French, Caroline Garcia, ranked fourth in the world, before renewing her victory over the latter in Miami as well.
It is noteworthy that Sabalenka reached the final of the Indian Wells tournament 10 days ago, and lost to Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan.