[Veesus Christ]

Finishing what Yang, Flipkens, and Putin started.

Sofia ‘mental giant’ Kenin losing 10 games in a row….. 👀 She was playing an unbelievable first set (did the much better FILA kit give her some new mojo?) and hit so many sharp-angled winners.

In sets 2 and 3 Sakkari got angry, got her first serve %age up, stopped bashing so much, and hit down the middle to take the angle away from Sofia. Nice to see this sort of mid-match strategy change pay off - although it must be said, Sofia kind of imploded too. Yet another top 10 win, another 500 SF, and now 31 aces from just four matches.

Will be interesting to see her challenge Aryna's streak, she has struggled with that matchup so far.

***

Something must be done about Kenin’s father. Aside from the ludicrous amount of illicit coaching he does, his use of gamesmanship is disgraceful. Moving to sit next to Ferro’s coach at RG to distract her, last night he was muttering to Putintseva in Russian from behind his mask (she kept telling the umpire), and today he was talking mid-rally whenever Sakkari is about to hit the ball as well, until she exploded about it. I actually think all his little games and the opponents’ arguments about them are only distracting Kenin as well. She’s good enough not to need this bs.

 

[Scrubaball]

Grr...Yang could have made a run here...but still, all's well that ends well!

 

[Black_Hawk]

After watching the 2nd set and I went for a quick power nap. Woke up and saw the TV screen to find Kenin ate a bagel in the final set!

Shell shocked I swear

 

[Javi]

Not surprising at all seeing how each other came to this match.
Maria is coming to top 10 I think.

 

[EkVraNaamEnVan]

With that tasty bagel, watch it feed Kenin's anger so that she defends her AO title, leaving Maria and her kith in the dust of slamlessness.

 

[Akhira]

Sakkari's 'eeeehh' grunting is one of the worst.

 

[Kurmay3Katti]

Couldn't see the final set (saw only the first 2 sets), but damn. Didn't expect a bagel! The match got over by the time I came back lol. Kenin was playing really well at first while Sakkari looked quite deflated and didn't really have any gameplan. Sakkari finally started to pick it up in the second set, especially landing some first serves in the second set which gave her more opportunities to dictate points while Kenin starting making a bunch of basic UEs. I guess that continued in the decider.

Well done Sakkari, what a fight back! Should be an interesting match against Sabalenka

 

[comotMN]

Maria serve has become a real weapon

 

[Slayla]

honestly.... not a good match . It was pretty damn boring and filled with unforced errors ( and the bad kind) .
Whatever , Maria did a good job to reach the semis where i’m pretty sure she will lose to Sabalenka in two sets.
Sofia proved this week again why she is so good and also why she is a beatable opponent ( for any gamestyle , really)
It s clear she suffers from being a slow starter in a tournament , and her draws ( where she reached the latter stages of a tournament ) have generally been extremely kind. In time , however , she is gonna improve at this ( probably) .

 

[StephenUK]

Shocking performance from Kenin in that final set. She was just hopeless. All in all a ragbag of a showing here in Abu Dhabi, she played well in one set of this match and part of the previous round, but overall she does not look like she is defending that AO title unless she gets her act together in the next few weeks.

 

[Paradoxymoron]

Better player, and more importantly, better person won!

They really need to ban Kenin's father - this is getting ridiculous

 

[Gabriel_Hrnandz]

The biggest "mental giant" since Seles. Lol.

That's why she has 1 GS and 3 250 titles

 

[comotMN]

Sofia is a good girl but her father is baaad. He should be banned really

 

[Slayla]

Shocking performance from Kenin in that final set. She was just hopeless. All in all a ragbag of a showing here in Abu Dhabi, she played well in one set of this match and part of the previous round, but overall she does not look like she is defending that AO title unless she gets her act together in the next few weeks.

Sis, she lost to Collins before she won the Ao (6-1,6-3) . She is gonna be fine .

 

[StephenUK]

What was Kenin's unforced error count in the end? It must have been off the scale!

 

[Viktorija]

Sakkari is going to win something big before Screamrenka.

 

[morgendorffer]

Something must be done about Kenin’s father. Aside from the ludicrous amount of illicit coaching he does, his use of gamesmanship is disgraceful. Moving to sit next to Ferro’s coach at RG to distract her, last night he was muttering to Putintseva in Russian from behind his mask (she kept telling the umpire), and today he was talking mid-rally whenever Sakkari is about to hit the ball as well, until she exploded about it. I actually think all his little games and the opponents’ arguments about them are only distracting Kenin as well. She’s good enough not to need this bs.

There should definitely be some kind of hindrance penalty for this kind of thing. He should also be unable to sit courtside for a little while.

 

[ziggy2shus3]

Kenin's game went off the cliff in the 2nd set as she lost the last 4 games and then lost all 6 games in the 3rd set.
Kenin had 2 winners and 16 UFEs in the 2nd set. Sakkari won 34 points in the 2nd set, but 16 of those points were UFEs by Kenin.
This match was all about Kenin, as she played well in the 1st set then could find the court in the 2nd and 3rd sets.

 

[Akhira]

Sakkari is going to win something big before Screamrenka.

Screamabalenka u mean. Screamrenka has already won big stuff.

 

[Miccalish77]

Sofia needs to fire her father, like ASAP, he is completely dragging down her game. She was so clearly embarrassed out there after the incident, she literally just became a hitting partner begging Sakkari to put her out of her misery. He's actively hurting her performances at this point, and now she's gonna have to defend another shitty thing he did becasue he's her father and just further damage her reputation.