The “tour soulmates” will face off for a third time in 2024, with Sabalenka narrowly getting the better of Badosa on clay earlier this spring in Stuttgart.

“I would say at the beginning I was so closed, and I thought that this is the way everything is,” she explained in her post-match press conference. “Like, everyone is kind of like off and you cannot be friends with anybody. But then with time, with experience you kind of figure out stuff. You get good with each other.

“I would say that right now with the Top 10 players, we are all good with each other, and there are no big fights outside the court. Of course, on court we are opponents, but off court…we can talk, we can have fun.

“Not like we are best friends, but it’s not like something, you know…” she concludes, grasping for the right word. “Tough? How to say, something crazy, like intense. Intense, exactly.”

Sabalenka has certainly kept her intensity on the court at Roland Garros and throughout the clay swing, losing only to Iga Swiatek in her last two tournaments and dropping just seven games through two rounds on the terre battue.

Badosa has had a tougher go of things, albeit against higher-caliber opponents: rallying from a set down in both matches, she reeled off the final three games of a rain-interrupted clash with Putintseva, who has twice reached the quarterfinals in Paris, to book the bestie battle with Sabalenka.

“Of course, sharing the court with [Aryna] after all these results she’s doing and all this is a pleasure, because for me, you know, this past year hasn’t been easy,” Badosa said. “So playing these kind of matches, it makes it all worth it, you know.”