Sabalenka vs Badosa Prediction 23 January 2025

Will Aryna Sabalenka manage to defeat Paula Badosa for the seventh consecutive time? Sportbooks are firmly convinced that a revenge in the Australian Open semifinal match will not happen. However, we will refrain from making hasty conclusions in our prediction, as both ladies have had roughly the same path to the title (losing one set each).

Aryna Sabalenka

For Sabalenka, defending the trophy is not going particularly smoothly, which indicates less than ideal conditions. In the new season, Aryna has already celebrated a triumph (Brisbane). However, dominating everyone in her previous manner is not happening. Today, the Belarusian spent almost two hours dealing with Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, facing significant difficulties in service games (five breaks, three aces, and more than half of the points lost on the second serve). Nonetheless, in the remaining matches, the athlete will inevitably give her maximum effort. Especially considering the fact that in case of failure, she risks losing the world ranking leadership to Iga Świątek again.

Paula Badosa

Badosa reaches this late stage of a major for the first time in her career. But high ambitions were definitely not met. Due to endless injuries and illnesses, Paula settled for dubious successes for several years, which did not lead to an inglorious end to her career. Last summer, the Spaniard conquered a 500 tournament in Washington, thereby making a serious step towards returning to the elite. This morning, the tennis player sensationally sent Coco Gauff packing, acting very passively for almost the entire match (15 actively won points against 23 unforced errors).

Editorial Prediction

In this encounter, Badosa, in our opinion, is obliged to significantly unsettle Sabalenka. Since their last official head-to-head confrontation (7-5; 6-1), Paula has transformed beyond recognition, and we believe that this time she will not let Aryna off with just a scare. A victory for the representative of Spain with a handicap of +4.5 is the best choice for the match.