Sabalenka survives Wimbledon scare from No. 104

Aryna Sabalenka trailed by a set, past doubly was down a interruption successful the 3rd earlier grabbing the past 3 games to scope the Wimbledon semifinals by overcoming 104th-ranked Laura Siegemund 4-6, 6-2, 6-4 astatine Centre Court connected Tuesday.

Sabalenka, No. 1 since past October, ne'er has been to a rubric lucifer astatine the All England Club, the lone Grand Slam tourney wherever that's the case. She won the Australian Open doubly and the US Open once, and was the runner-up astatine this year's Australian Open (losing to Madison Keys) and French Open (losing to Coco Gauff).

The 27-year-old Belarusian mislaid successful the semifinals astatine Wimbledon successful 2021 and 2023.

On Thursday, she gets a 3rd accidental successful that round. Sabalenka volition conscionable either No. 13 effect Amanda Anisimova oregon 50th-ranked Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

Sabalenka hadn't dropped a acceptable during this year's travel to the grass-court large until Tuesday -- but she besides hadn't faced an hostile whose benignant is rather arsenic an unorthodox arsenic that of the 37-year-old Siegemund.

The German, who eliminated No. 6 Keys past week, was the oldest pistillate successful the quarterfinals, arsenic good arsenic the 1 with the fewest vocation titles (two).

She arrived astatine Wimbledon with a vocation grounds determination of 2-5 and with a 4-9 people connected circuit successful 2025. She was bidding to go to oldest first-time large semifinalist successful the Open era.

Siegemund's quality to alteration the depth, speed, angles and spins of her shots frustrated Sabalenka, particularly successful the last set.

As her mistakes mounted, she would look up astatine her container with a quizzical look and rise her hands. After missing 1 forehand disconnected a abbreviated ball, she knelt connected the writer adjacent the net.

After breaking Sabalenka for the sixth clip of the afternoon, Siegemund was serving up 40-30 to instrumentality a 5-3 pb successful the last set. But Sabalenka broke close backmost to unfastened her match-ending tally that included winning 12 of the last 16 points.

"She pushed maine truthful much, and honestly aft the archetypal acceptable I was conscionable looking astatine my container thinking, 'Guys I mean similar publication the tickets you cognize -- I deliberation we're astir to permission this beauteous city, country, place,'" Sabalenka said successful her on-court interview. "But wow she played an unthinkable tournament, an unthinkable match, and I'm conscionable ace blessed close present with the win."

Since 2022, Sabalenka is 11-3 successful majors aft losing the opening set; anterior to that, she was 2-13.

Sabalenka improved to 12-1 successful large quarterfinals, the lone nonaccomplishment coming astatine past year's French Open against Mirra Andreeva. That's the second-best grounds by immoderate pistillate successful the Open epoch aft Chris Evert.

ESPN Research, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.