Sabalenka

MELBOURNE, Australia — (AP) — Aryna Sabalenka has taken the second set 6-3 over Elena Rybakina to give each a set in the final of the Australian Open final ...

A few games later, Sabalenka returned the favor, also putting her racket on one of Rybakina’s offerings at that same speed. This time, Sabalenka again turned toward her entourage, but with a sigh and an eye roll and arms extended, as if to say, “Can you believe it?” Sabalenka had been broken just six times in 55 service games through the course of these two weeks, an average of once per match. That, along with a commitment to trying to stay calm in the most high-pressure moments, is really paying off now. The key statistic, ultimately, was this: Sabalenka accumulated 13 break points, Rybakina seven. Long capable of hammering aces, she also had a well-known problem with double-faulting, leading the tour in that category last year with nearly 400, including more than 20 apiece in some matches.

Aryna Sabalenka's undefeated run in 2023 has carried her to the Australian Open title with a 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory over Elena Rybakina.

In the next game, though, Sabalenka gave that right back, double-faulting twice, including on break point, to give Rybakina a 5-4 edge. Which makes perfect sense: This was the most important match of her career to date. A few games later, Sabalenka returned the favor, also putting her racket on one of Rybakina's offerings at that same speed. Sabalenka had been broken just six times in 55 service games through the course of these two weeks, an average of once per match. Long capable of hammering aces, she also had a well-known problem with double-faulting, leading the tour in that category last year with nearly 400, including more than 20 apiece in some matches. It was telling that Sabalenka's remarks during the postmatch ceremony were directed at her coach, Anton Dubrov, and her fitness trainer, Jason Stacy.

The 24-year-old Belarusian player pushed Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan to three sets to capture her first Grand Slam singles title.

Two games from the championship and in the driver’s seat, Sabalenka pumped her fist, took a few deep breaths and mouthfuls of water on the changeover, then strutted back onto the court to hammer her way to the title. As the reigning Wimbledon champion playing against a first-time Grand Slam finalist, Rybakina held a priceless edge in experience, but Sabalenka had all of the momentum, and the balls were jumping off her strings with a pop and a zip that Rybakina couldn’t match. She was also asked to answer for her native country’s invasion of Ukraine as she stampeded to the title. On her third chance to get the crucial break of serve, Sabalenka sent her opponent scrambling after shots, then put away the game with an overhead shot from the middle of the court. Then, on Sabalenka’s fourth match point, Rybakina buckled, sending that forehand long, and an overwhelmed Sabalenka flat onto her back. On Thursday, after finally making her first Grand Slam final on her fourth try, Sabalenka talked about having fired her sports psychologist. Rybakina, a Russian through her childhood who became a citizen of Kazakhstan when the country promised to pay for her tennis training, spent the better part of two weeks during Wimbledon talking about whether she was actually Kazakh or Russian. They were first and second in hitting winners off their opponents’ serve, and at the top of the charts in peak serve speed, with both cracking 120 miles per hour. It was Sabalenka’s first Grand Slam title in a rocky career that has included the kind of error-ridden, big-moment meltdowns from which some players almost never recover. The year’s first Grand Slam event runs from Jan. On the final, anxious point, Rybakina sent a forehand long. “We’ve been through a lot of downs,” she said.

Aryna Sabalenka bludgeoned her way to a maiden Grand Slam title at the Australian Open with a 4-6 6-3 6-4 win over Kazakh 22nd seed Elena Rybakina on ...

"It was a really tough year and I had tough moments last year. "I had goosebumps when everyone was cheering for us... She then double-faulted on one matchpoint and squandered two more to draw gasps from the crowd. She was going to fight for it... Right now, I'm just super proud of myself," Sabalenka added. "Thanks so much for an amazing atmosphere," said Sabalenka, who received the trophy from former world number one Billie Jean King.

Aryna Sabalenka (N°5 del ranking WTA) tocó la gloria con sus manos al alzar su primer título de Grand Slam en el Australian Open. Luego de una pulseada de ...

El último de la lista se agregó con el triunfo sobre la campeona reinante del Slam británico. Llegó a Melbourne Park con el título de Adelaida bajo el brazo y terminó su campaña en el Grand Slam oceánico extendiendo su racha victoriosa a 11 partidos ganados al hilo. Aryna Sabalenka (N°5 del ranking WTA) tocó la gloria con sus manos al alzar su primer título de Grand Slam en el Australian Open.

En medio del conflicto en curso en Ucrania, el organizador del torneo Tennis Australia exigió que los jugadores rusos y bielorrusos compitieran como neutrales.

En el segundo set apuntó al golpe de derecha de Rybakina y quebró temprano para una ventaja de 3-1. Inicialmente, la pareja se enfrentó cara a cara, ambos tenían la valentía de ir por sus tiros, para mantener el poder, pero fue Sabalenka quien finalmente se abrió paso. La kazaja nacida en Rusia, se llevó tres puntos de campeonato pero envió un golpe de derecha largo en el cuarto. Sirviendo primero, abrió el partido con una doble falta ya que los nervios claramente jugaron un papel en una ocasión como esta. Más tarde admitió que tácticamente no “jugó lo mejor posible” en el primer set. “Trabajamos muy duro, ustedes se merecen este trofeo, se trata más de ustedes que de mí.

Aryna Sabalenka remonta tras ceder el primer set y conquista su primer título de Grand Slam al superar 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 a Elena Rybakina en la final del ...

El disparo más veloz de Rybakina alcanzó los 195 kilómetros por hora, el de Sabalenka 192 kph. Al final, lo que único que importó es que Sabalenka controló sus nervios para terminar la labor. Claramente, el triunfo en el Abierto de Australia no iba a ocurrir sin una liga batalla el sábado. Esos duros golpes y estilo agresivo ayudaron a conseguir 51 tiros ganadores, 20 más que Rybakina. “Pasamos por muchos, como diría, puntos bajos el año pasado”, admitió Sabalenka, quien disputó su primer final de un major. A un punto de ganar su primer título de Grand Slam, Aryna Sabalenka cometió una falta.

Aryna Sabalenka es la campeona del Australian Open 2023. El de Aryna Sabalenka no fue un nombre que llamó la atención en el circuito junior del tenis femenino, ...

La anterior campeona del Australian Open sin perder sets había sido Serena Williams en 2017. Y es que, tras llegar como favorita, cumplió con los pronósticos en la final y es la campeona del Australian Open, su primer Grand Slam, tras vencer a Elena Rybakina por 4-6, 6-3 y 6-4. Y en este momento aprovechó su gran oportunidad en singles, jugando un mejor tenis que nunca.

Aryna Sabalenka lies on the court during the women's final round match at the 2023 Australian. After winning the final match, against Elena Rybakina, with fifty ...

Her march to the Australian Open final had been important—a confirmation that Rybakina was one of the best players in the world, that her Wimbledon win was not a fluke. Sabalenka hit a thunderous overhead from a tricky position, the middle of the court, to take the break. She won the match on her third championship point, finishing with fifty-one winners to twenty-eight unforced errors, an astonishing ratio. She had to learn, she said, to fix her own problems on the court. She finished the year with more than four hundred double faults, more than a hundred more than the player with the second most. Rybakina came into the match as the twenty-second seed (and with the early outer-court assignments to match it). Her backhand seems chiselled to the essential motion and polished to smoothness, the way a sculpture can suggest the flow of water. And when the second set of the final began, and the pressure rose, she seemed to embrace it, and started to apply it herself. She had discovered, last year, that the problem was in her mind—but not only in the way one would imagine for a player with the yips. In the third game of the match, after firing an ace to go up 40–0, she watched her lead slip away, gifting a break point to Elena Rybakina with a double fault, and then losing the game with a loose forehand. She has a tiger’s face tattooed on her forearm, and a big cat’s rippling musculature. After Sabalenka scratched the break back to level the set at 4–4, Rybakina coolly got another, to go up 5–4, and then served out the set at love.

The Belarusian, who beat Elena Rybakina to win her first Grand Slam title on Saturday, held the trophy in triumph while the war in Ukraine remained a brutal ...

However you present her on the scoreboard, it was a Belarus victory. “Missing the Wimbledon was really tough for me,” she said. Her performance on Saturday was incontrovertible proof that they had succeeded, with the help of a biomechanical expert but also Sabalenka’s own resilience. Born and raised in Russia, she switched allegiance to Kazakhstan in exchange for financial support in 2018. Rybakina overpowered Swiatek in the fourth round in Melbourne on her way to the final. “And all that really starts from the people I was surrounded with. 2, behind Iga Swiatek, who still has a large lead based on her terrific 2022 season but who has lost to Sabalenka and Rybakina in the last two significant tournaments. It was tennis reminiscent of the big-serving, high-velocity duels between Serena and Venus Williams. But for the most part, it was strength versus strength; straight-line power against straight-line power. “I would like to have a quieter life,” she said after the mixed doubles final. Swiatek, the Polish star who looked set to become a dominant No. Anything less would not have sufficed against Elena Rybakina in their gripping, corner-to-corner final that might have been better suited to a ring as the two six-footers exchanged big blows for two hours and 28 minutes.

Aryna Sabalenka won her first Grand Slam title by coming back to beat Elena Rybakina in the Australian Open women's final.

“I really feel right now that I really needed those tough losses to kind of understand myself a little bit better. “I actually feel happy that I lost those matches, so right now I can be a different player and just a different Aryna, you know?” Capable of delivering aces, she also had a well-known problem with double-faulting, leading the tour in that category last year with nearly 400, including matches with more than 20. After much prodding from her group, she agreed to undergo an overhaul of her mechanics last August. At the end, when it mattered more than ever, Sabalenka was able to steady herself. “We’ve been through a lot of, I would say, downs last year,” said Sabalenka, who was appearing in her first major final and had been 0-3 in Slam semifinals until this week. I (kept) telling myself, like, ’Nobody tells you that it’s going to be easy.’ You just have to work for it, work for it, ’til the last point,” said Sabalenka, a 24-year-old from Belarus who is now 11-0 with two titles in 2023 and will rise to No. And so, as she wasted a second match point by flubbing a forehand, and a third by again missing another, Sabalenka did her best to stay calm, something she used to find quite difficult. “She was strong mentally, physically.” Clearly, this business of winning the Australian Open was not bound to happen without a bit of a struggle Saturday night. She hung in there until a fourth chance to close out Elena Rybakina presented itself — and this time, Sabalenka saw a forehand from her similarly powerful foe sail long. She yelled and turned her back to the court.