She is the only WTA player Aryna Sabalenka has never beaten after facing her more than once

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Aryna Sabalenka has ensured that only one player holds this record over her at Indian Wells this week.

Sabalenka had not played Naomi Osaka since the 2018 US Open, where she was beaten by the eventual champion.

In their first match in nearly eight years, Sabalenka beat Osaka in straight sets to reach the Indian Wells quarterfinals.

This result ensured that there is still only one player who Sabalenka has never beaten after facing them more than once.

Timea Bacsinszky has never lost to Aryna Sabalenka after playing her twice

Sabalenka has beaten the likes of Iga Swiatek, Coco Gauff, Ash Barty and many other top players in her career, but she has never beaten Timea Bacsinszky.

Aryna Sabalenka is now the — best women’s player of all time

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Bacsinszky, who has been retired since 2021, played Sabalenka twice in the early stages of her career.

The first of those matches came in Switzerland’s Fed Cup, now known as the Billie Jean King Cup, tie against Belarus in 2017.

This was when Sabalenka was just 18 years old and ranked outside the top 100, with experience showing for Bacsinszky, who is nine years older, beating her opponent 6-4, 7-5.

Bacsinszky and Sabalenka would meet again one year later at the Tianjin Open, but they were in very different positions at this point.

Sabalenka had enjoyed a huge breakout season in 2018, and after winning her first WTA 1000 title was on the brink of making her top 10 debut, while Bacsinszky was ranked outside the top 300 after undergoing surgery on her right hand towards the end of 2017.

Despite this, an emotional Bacsinszky was still able to beat Sabalenka in straight sets and extend her unbeaten record against her.

To this day, Bacsinszky is still the only player Sabalenka has never beaten after playing more than once, having done so against 105 of the 106 other opponents she has played multiple times.

What is Timea Bacsinszky’s best result at a Grand Slam?

While Bacsinszky may not be a household name, she had a more than respectable career of her own.

This included reaching a career-high ranking of world number nine in 2018, which Bacsinszky achieved after winning three of her four WTA titles within the space of a year.

Three of Bacsinszky’s four WTA titles came on hard courts, but it was on clay where she produced her best Grand Slam results.

Bacsinszky twice reached the French Open semifinals, in 2015 and 2017, and also made a quarterfinal appearance in 2016.

The Swiss never surpassed the third round of either the Australian Open or the US Open, but Bacsinszky did reach the Wimbledon quarterfinals in 2015.

Bacsinszky also won 11 matches against top 10 players, but her career did not end in the way that she would have wanted.

At the Korea Open in 2019, Bacsinszky was beaten 6-0, 6-0, by Kristie Ahn, in what turned out to be the final match of her tennis career, which she only officially confirmed two years later.