Maria Sakkari at the Australian Open 2023 Greek City Times for Greek News At Melbourne Park, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia Date: 21 January 2023.
Maria Sakkari became the latest seed to crash out of the event as she was beaten by a very inspired Lin Zhu who played bravely all match long and won the match.
All jokes asides, Lin Zhu did not need the help of any kind of Netflix curse because she played a spectacular match to down Maria Sakkari in a very close 3-set match. The Chinese player was up early in this match but allowed Sakkari to battle back in the opening set and take it to the tiebreak. In the tiebreak, we saw Zhu take the 4-1 lead which was enough to capture the set 7-3 in the tiebreak.
The second set saw Sakkari play much better and much more decisive. She took the 3-1 lead and then added another break for the 5-1 lead and then another one for the 6-1 lead. Zhu was very off the mark in the second set not being able to keep the ball in play. Sakkari hoped that would continue in the next set as she kept applying pressure but it didn't.
It was the opposite as Sakkari was the one who missed a lot. She had 20 unforced errors compared to Zhu's 11 as the Chinese player added 11 wineners as well. She was very strong in reading Sakkari's intentions hitting some amazing passing shots.