Sabalenka

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, the fifth seed from Belarus, roared back powerfully to win 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 and take her first grand slam singles title.

On Saturday, she relied heavily on her serve to hold on in the tight final games. On Monday, she will rise to No 10 in the rankings from her current position of 25th, breaking the top 10 for the first time in her career at last. On her fourth match point, Sabalenka forced a final forehand error from Rybakina, and collapsed to the ground as a grand slam champion at last. Her victory is a validation of the perseverance and toil it has taken to improve both her mentality and game. She hired a psychologist, who helped her manage her emotions, before recently deciding to hold herself accountable. With her considerably heavier ball – her ability to combine pace and spin, unlike Rybakina’s flatter ball – alongside her greater athleticism, Sabalenka knew that she had the edge over Rybakina in any neutral rally. Sabalenka remains unbeaten in 2023, winning her first 11 matches of the season with two titles to her name. She spent her time in Adelaide throwing in underarm serves because she simply could not serve. Throughout the supreme winning run she has compiled to start this season, Aryna Sabalenka continually stressed that her mentality has shifted. Neither player shied away from the pressure of such a significant moment and they produced exquisite shotmaking from the beginning. Sabalenka, who hails from Belarus, is the first neutral athlete to win a singles grand slam tournament since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. She is more composed now, willing to work for her opportunities instead of swinging thoughtlessly for the fences.

MELBOURNE: 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 ...

"Hopefully we're going to have many more battles," she added. "The last game, of course I was a little bit nervous. She double-faulted on one matchpoint and squandered two more to draw gasps from the crowd. Sabalenka's coach Anton Dubrov shed tears of joy. With Russian and Belarusian players competing as individuals without national affiliation in Melbourne due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Sabalenka becomes the first neutral athlete to win a major. It was like a preparation."

Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus defeated Kazakhstan's Elena Rybakina for the Australian Open women's title in Melbourne, landing her first ever grand slam.

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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.

An emotional Aryna Sabalenka yesterday battled back from a set down to beat Elena Rybakina and win the Australian Open and her first Grand Slam title. The hard- ...

Swiatek’s defeat to Elena Rybakina makes it the first Grand Slam in the Open era — since 1968 — to lose the top two seeds in the men’s and women’s draws before the quarter-finals. The remarkable reversal was just one dramatic comeback on a night that saw the Brooklyn Nets — led by 38 points from an inspired FIGHTBACK SUNDAY: The remarkable reversal was just one comeback on a night that saw the Brooklyn Nets beat NBA champions the Golden State Warriors LeBron James on Sunday scored 20 of his 37 points in the second half as the Los Angeles Lakers rallied from a 25-point halftime deficit to stun the Portland Trail Blazers 121-112. Goals from Giovanni di Lorenzo and Victor Osimhen immediately either side of halftime made sure that Napoli would be at least nine points clear at the halfway point of the season after a straight-forward win in soaking Salerno. She was awarded no ranking points for her Wimbledon win because of the ban on Russian and Belarusian players there. “I want to congratulate Elena for an incredible two weeks.

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.

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 ...

“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. 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. “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. “She was strong mentally, physically.” She yelled and turned her back to the court. [Elena Rybakina](https://apnews.com/article/wimbledon-sports-moscow-kazakhstan-venus-williams-eeec79c03f00550d3476baa22e2e273e) presented itself — and this time, Sabalenka saw a forehand from her similarly powerful foe sail long. She hung in there until a fourth chance to close out She wiggled her shoulders and exhaled.

In a blazing final, Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina matched each other ace for ace and winner for winner, until the No. 5 seed found another gear, ...

“I just changed how I feel. When this tournament began, one player, Iga Swiatek, was in a stratosphere of her own. The quality of the match was reflected in the statistics. The nerves returned, of course—she double faulted on her first match point, and made ground-stroke errors on two others. “I was just nervous in the first set,” Sabalenka said. “I was rushing a lot. Sabalenka was playing her first Grand Slam final, but she already knew exactly how hard it is to win one of these tournaments. “Nobody tells you it’s going to be easy,” Aryna Sabalenka kept saying to herself on Saturday night in Rod Laver Arena. 5 seed found another gear, and her first Grand Slam title. 1 in Australia, and No. Sabalenka is a compelling battle for No. Australian Open

She has had a rocky career that has included the kind of error-ridden, big-moment meltdowns from which some players almost never recover.

I was super emotional at the end.” She has a great serve and she plays really aggressive. “We’ve been through a lot of downs,” she said. “Thank you, my team, the craziest team on the tour. “Oh my god, I’m speechless, to be honest. On the final, anxious point, Rybakina sent a forehand long.

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.