WATCH: Sabalenka shows off huge game in New Haven

NEW HAVEN — An Aryna Sabalenka forehand is an experience to behold.

As she takes the racquet back, her right arm flies up, and her racquet hand rises above her head. The racquet pauses, for the briefest moment. Spring-loaded, it then viciously sweeps around her nearly six-foot frame.

At contact, she lets out a loud grunt, but it's like nothing you've ever heard before. It's more of an impassioned roar—something what you might expect to hear from the tiger tattooed onto her left arm.

In her 6-3, 6-7 (6), 7-5 Connecticut Open win over defending champion Daria Gavrilova on Wednesday, it looked, and sounded, like this:

Sabalenka's serve is a similar experience. She doesn't drop the racquet like a lot of players. Instead, she backswings up and around her body, pauses (briefly), and then unleashes—with the tiger grunt—to frequently sending the ball well over 110 mph, some times nearing 120 mph.

That's for her first serve, at least. Her second one sits more comfortably in the 80s, but it stays close to the lines, and it has the legs to bounce up and do some damage. That is, when it doesn't go out, which it does maybe a little more often than it should. Sabalenka double-faulted 15 times on Wednesday.

Things don't always go smoothly for the 20-year-old Belarusian. And when Sabalenka struggles, you can see it. The world No. 25 slams her racquet and flings it up in the air, and she isn't shy abut yelling in anger.

"I need to be faster on the court and moving better," she said when asked what it'll take for her to become a Top-10 player. "And I need to work on my emotions."

Sabalenka has been the hot ticket lately, but her game isn't complete yet. She made 62 unforced errors in her marathon match with Gavrilova, and she was pushed dangerously close to elimination.

But in the deciding set, serving at 4-4, 15-40, Sabalenka's brave bashing game style worked when she needed it the most.  In the end, untamed aggression was enough to get to the quarterfinals of New Haven. Once there, she blew past Belinda Bencic 6-3, 6-2 to reach the semifinals.

What lies ahead for Sabalenka is still an exciting mystery, but she'll certainly be a dark horse in New York next week.