 Maria, Sakurai vs. Irina Sabalenka is the first semi-final for the ladies event in Madrid for 2023. And both ladies have to fight their way to get to this stage. Sakurai enter the tournament as the number 9 seed, and we're going to buy in the first round. In the second round she'll take on the qualifier Ruz. This is no problem for Sakurai, getting through in straight sets, 6-4-6-4. In the third round she'll take on the wild card Masa Rova, who had just taken out Vekic in the previous round. And after dropping the first set, Sakurai would have to fight back to win, 3-6-6-3-6-3 to get to the fourth round. In the fourth round she'll take on Bodosa, the number 26 seed, who had just demolished Coco Goff in the previous round. And Sakurai looked amazing, serving extremely well, and getting through in straight sets, 6-4-6-4 to make her to her first quarter-final in Madrid. In the quarter-finals, Sakurai would take on the number 31 seed Bagou, who'd been very fortunate, thanks to the withdrawal from Jabur, to get to the stage. Who'd been very impressive to get to the stage. And after a very long first two sets, Sakurai would have outlasted Bagou, 6-7-6-4-6-2 to get to the semi-finals. Sabalenka started the tournament off as the number two seed, and get a buy in the first round. In the second round she'd take on Castella, who had actually beaten her earlier in the year in Miami. But Sabalenka got her revenge, getting through in straight sets, 6-4-6-3. In the third round she'd take on the wild card Osorio, who had had some solid wins to get to the stage. This was no problem for Sabalenka, getting through in straight sets, 6-4-7-5. In the fourth round she'd take on another wild card, the teen sensation on Drava, who had taken out Adajmaia and Lynette to get to the stage. And after a close first set, the experience showed, and prevailed, Sabalenka winning 6-3-6-1 to get to another Madrid quarter-final. In the quarter-finals Sabalenka would take on the unseeded Shariff, who had been very impressive to get to the quarter-finals. And after dropping the first set, Sabalenka would have to fight back to win 2-6-6-2-6-1 to advance to the semi-finals. These two have played eight times before, with Sabalenka leading 5-3 in the head to head, but they've never played on a clay court. However, Sabalenka did win their last match at Indian Wells in the semi-finals there only a couple of months ago. If Sakurai is going to win this one, she needs to play a little more aggressive than she did against Begu. She played really well against Bedosa a couple of days ago with that aggressive game. Against Begu, she kind of took a step back and tried to rally a lot longer. It ended up working in the end, but she needs to play more aggressive, because Sabalenka is going to attack her if she doesn't. Sabalenka is going to win this one. She needs to get off to a much better start than she did against Shariff. Against Shariff, she was hitting so many errors in that first set. She needs to make sure she keeps her cool as well. She did manage to turn it around in the second set, mainly thanks to Shariff. But let's see if Sabalenka can keep her cool and get off to a better start. This is such a blockbuster matchup. A top 10 clash in one of the biggest tournaments in the world. A semi-finals in Madrid. This is going to be really fun. I'm going to go with Sabalenka to win this one in three. I think we're going to have an absolute epic. We've already had two epic matches in the quarterfinals to this stage from both these ladies. So let's see if they can both put on a show and make the final. But let me know down in the comments below who do you think is going to win.