{"id":378614,"date":"2024-03-22T23:01:39","date_gmt":"2024-03-23T00:01:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=378614"},"modified":"2024-03-23T01:03:24","modified_gmt":"2024-03-23T01:03:24","slug":"sabalenkas-emotional-embrace-with-best-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=378614","title":{"rendered":"Sabalenka's emotional embrace with best friend"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reigning Australian Open<\/a> champion Aryna Sabalenka<\/a> has won her first match since the death of her ex-partner, Konstantin Koltsov<\/a> this week.<\/p>\n

Playing close friend Paula Badosa in the Miami Open<\/a>, Sabalenka was able to put her emotions aside to win in straight sets 6-4, 6-3.<\/p>\n

The pair shared a warm embrace at the net following their second-round match. Sabalenka received a bye in the first round.<\/p>\n

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Although she was spotted practising on Tuesday only hours after Koltsov's death, tournament organisers gave her some extra time to prepare by pushing her match back a day.<\/p>\n

\"Aryna<\/p>\n

The rest of her quarter of the draw finished their matches on Friday morning (AEDT).<\/p>\n

Sabalenka received a warm round of applause from the small crowd \u2013 the match was delayed a further six hours due to heavy rain \u2013 when she arrived on court.<\/p>\n

Perhaps unsurprisingly, she was scrappy early on \u2013 double faulting on numerous occasions early in the first set.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/josemorgado\/status\/1771305361980412310<\/a>https:\/\/twitter.com\/SkySportsTennis\/status\/1771299257854669039<\/a><\/p>\n

But she eventually settled, and won the first break thanks to a fortuitous let cord. She was able to serve out the set comfortably.<\/p>\n

Sabalenka appeared to be in good spirits, at one point bursting out laughing when a gust of wind in the middle of her serving motion blew the ball well off-course.<\/p>\n

Police in Miami believe Koltsov, 42, died of an "apparent suicide" and that "no foul play is suspected".<\/p>\n

\"Aryna<\/p>\n

In a post to her Instagram story, Sabalenka described his death as "an unthinkable tragedy", but revealed they had split before his death.<\/p>\n

As is customary in the Orthodox church, Sabalenka was dressed in all-black \u2013 as was Badosa.<\/p>\n

Sabalenka will face Ukrainian Anhelina Kalinina \u2013 who defeated Caroline Wozniaki in three sets \u2013 in the third round tomorrow (AEDT).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reigning Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka has won her first match since the death of her ex-partner, Konstantin Koltsov this week. Playing close friend Paula […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":378617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378614"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=378614"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":378620,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378614\/revisions\/378620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/378617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=378614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=378614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=378614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}