Aryna Sabalenka slumps to shock defeat at DDF Tennis Championships

Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka fell to a surprise defeat at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships on Tuesday.

The second seed, inactive since her successful title defence at Melbourne Park last month, took a one-set lead against world No 31 Donna Vekic but couldn't capitalise on her advantage, ultimately losing 6-7, 6-3, 6-0.

Vekic has proved something of a problem for Sabalenka over the years and this defeat was her sixth in eight meetings with the Croatian.

Still, Sabalenka was the heavy favourite for this match in Dubai. The Belarusian had started the season in superb form, reaching the final of the Brisbane International and cruising to her second successive Australian Open title without dropping a set. In contrast, Vekic arrived in Dubai with a 4-3 win-loss record in 2024. The super-computer that produces pre-match win probabilities sided with Sabalenka at a whopping 88 per cent.

Sabalenka did not even lose a single service game at the Australian Open but it took Vekic just two to earn her first break. The world No 2 claimed immediate parity at 2-2 and looked to have assumed control of the match with a second break to lead 5-3, yet was uncharacteristically broken again when serving for the set.

Sabalenka was below her best but did enough to grind out a one-set lead in the tiebreak, and when she broke in the opening game of the second set, most would have expected her to run away with the match. Instead, Vekic first clawed her way back into the contest at 2-2 and then, against expectations, started to dominate.

With the set poised at 3-3, the Croatian won the next three games to level the match, starting a remarkable run of nine straight games to blow away an increasingly error-strewn Sabalenka in two