Beatriz Haddad Maia’s campaign at the Australian Open can already be considered historic for Brazilian tennis. This Wednesday (26), Brazilian and Kazakh Anna Danilina beat Japan’s Shuko Aoyama and Ena Shibahara by 2 sets to 1 (6/4, 5/7, 6/4) and advanced to the final of the women’s doubles tournament. in Melbourne.
After dominating most of the first two sets, Bia and Danilina had a match-point, but they didn’t take advantage of it. In the sequence, the Brazilian had her serve broken for the first time in the game, and the Japanese tied the score. Despite the drop in performance and tension, they managed to recover to close the match with authority in the third set.
The rivals were seeded number 2 and therefore favorites in the semifinals. As will the opponents for the title: the Czech duo Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova, seed 1, or the partnership of Belgian Elise Mertens with Russian Veronika Kudermetova, seed 3. This duel will take place later this night. The decision is scheduled for 1 am on Sunday (30), in BrasÃlia time.
Bia Haddad, 25, became the third tennis player in the country to reach the final of one of the Grand Slam tournaments, the four most important in the sport.
The others were Maria Esther Bueno, winner of 19 trophies at this level (11 in doubles, 7 in singles and 1 in mixed doubles), the last in 1968, and Cláudia Monteiro, runner-up in mixed doubles at Roland Garros in 1982.
Bia is still the first Brazilian woman in the final of the Australian Open in the professional era of the sport, which began in 1968. Maria Esther won a doubles trophy in the tournament, in 1960, and was runner-up in singles in 1965. Bruno Soares triumphed in doubles. men’s and mixed doubles in 2016.
The result from São Paulo reinforces a great moment for women’s tennis in the country. In September 2021, Luisa Stefani, 24, reached the semifinals of the US Open and broke a 53-year mark without a Brazilian reaching this stage in the women’s doubles bracket of a Grand Slam.
Previously, Luisa and Laura Pigossi, 27, won Brazil’s first Olympic medal in sport, with bronze at the Tokyo Games.
Bia’s campaign in Australia, especially for the result obtained this Wednesday, is surprising. Unlike Luisa, who specialized as a doubles player in recent years and reached the top 10 of the rankings (she is currently 11th and is injured), she has always prioritized singles tournaments. Still, he has already won three doubles titles at the top level of the circuit.
The partnership with Danilina, 26 years old and 53rd in the doubles ranking, began unexpectedly in early 2022, after a withdrawal from Argentina’s Nadia Podoroska, with whom the Brazilian would initially play in Australia.
The newly formed duo won a major title right off the bat, at the WTA 500 in Sydney — at the time, they also overcame the Japanese favorites in the semifinals. Now there are nine consecutive victories for them.
Packed, Bia entered the Slam as 150th in the doubles ranking and will reach at least the top 50 with the result obtained so far. In singles, she was 83rd and won her first game in the bracket, but was then stopped by Romanian Simona Halep.
The paulista made a recovery season in 2021 and returned to the top 100 after starting practically from scratch on the circuit.
In July 2019, the tennis player was suspended for doping. The sentence ended up set at ten months, after the defense was able to prove that the anabolic substances found in the test entered his body through contaminated food supplements.
Bia would be released to play in May 2020, but the circuit was only resumed in August of that year, because of the pandemic. Due to the points lost during this period, she resumed her career from 1,342nd position, playing in a series of small tournaments around the world.
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