It looked to be Jabeur's match as she led 5-3 in the second set tiebreak and was one point away from going 5-2 in the third set at the tournament played indoors in Texas.
"Somehow another miracle happened and I was able to win this match," Sabalenka told Reuters after the match, which took 2.5 hours to complete.
It was the Belarusian's first win over a top 5 player this year.
- I continued to fight and wanted to make sure that she would do something well to win the match and that it would not be easy for her.
That meant I put a little extra pressure on her and was able to win the key balls, says Sabalenka to WTA.
Sakkari won with grandma in the stands
In the second match, Maria Sakkari won over Jessica Pegula 7-6(8-6),7-6(7-4), where only the first set took 71 minutes.
It was a minute longer than the final between these players in Guadalajara, Mexico, just over a week ago.
Sakkari now got his revenge.
- It's never easy against Jess, says Sakkari, who had his parents and grandmother in the stands.
It was the first time in four years that grandmother saw her grandson play live.
- It wasn't like she saw her first tennis match. She has very good tennis skills because my grandfather was a tennis coach (coached Sakkari until she was 13).
She said, 'wow, what a high-quality match,'" Sakkari says of her grandmother's reaction.
Sakkari's mother, Angeliki Kanellopoulou, was ranked 43rd in the world when she retired as a 25-year-old in the 1980s.