Sabalenka

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, 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.

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.

From 'alarming' sight to Aus Open champ: How star banished demons in 'comeback of century'

I realised that nobody other than me will help,” she explained to reporters this week. I’m still screaming ‘C’mon!’ and all that stuff, just less negative emotions.” Sabalenka faced break points in all of her service games against Vekic, saving a remarkable 12 of the 14 she faced, more proof of the huge difference from a year ago. The combination means she can now get herself out of a crisis, as she did when losing the first set of the final and in digging herself out of a hole in her semi-final against Magda Linette. But the shaky serve that has haunted her so badly in the past was rock-solid on her run to a maiden Grand Slam crown. She was reduced to tears on court at a tournament in the lead-up to last year’s Australian Open.

Sabalenka, 24, was playing in her first Grand Slam singles final after breaking through following three semifinal appearances in the past two years.

“You just have to work for it and work for it to the end.” In 2022 Grand Slam matches in which Sabalenka lost the first set, she had gone 6-0: three wins at the Australian (where she reached the fourth round), one at the French (where she reached the third round) and two at the U.S. On a third championship point, 2 hours 26 minutes into the match, she shoved a backhand just long, but while she made the occasional gesture acknowledging her struggle — a slight smile, even — she won the battle with herself. She held at love at 5-4 for the first set — the first set Sabalenka had yielded among 21 this year — then tacked on more peril for Sabalenka by forging ahead 15-40 while returning serve in the first game of the second set. “She played unbelievable tennis,” the winner, Sabalenka, said of the other winner in the champion’s news conference in Melbourne, “and I fought so hard to win this one, and I think the tennis was great. Her service side stayed almost airtight with 17 aces and only one more break point faced until the harrowing final game. The match filled with the deuces of long, tight games — a 57-minute second set, a 57-minute third — its soundtrack the shrieks and grunts of Sabalenka against Rybakina’s noiseless power. “I think it’s more enjoyable, I would say, after all those tough matches,” she said. “Hopefully we’ll have more matches in the finals of Grand Slams,” Sabalenka told Rybakina on the court during the trophy ceremony. It began after a weird dearth of split-set matches at this tournament, with straight sets enough to decide six of eight fourth-round matches, all four quarterfinals and both semifinals. All 82 winners under pressure that seared back and forth across the Australian Open women’s final Saturday eventually seemed to identify just two winners: the players. It looked very much the player who will become No.

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 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.

The powerful Belarusian, who will become world No. 2 on Monday, showed a new side to her personality, posing effortlessly in front of the cameras.

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."

Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka took the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup on gondola tour through Melbourne's botanical gardens the morning after her ...

Just me and my trophy!" The newly-crowned major-winner, who'll return to No. Cloud 9 look an awful lot like Melbourne, Australia for Aryna Sabalenka on Sunday.

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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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

New Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka didn't get much sleep Saturday night after a rambunctious come-from-behind victory, but you wouldn't have known ...

"I like to pose. "It was a funny night, everyone was just too happy, so some of us didn't make it today, it was too much last night," Sabalenka laughed. "I'm always thinking about the match about some points and especially the last game," said Sabalenka about what was her maiden Grand Slam final.

Belarus' Aryna Sabalenka with the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup in Melbourne's Royal Botanic Gardens on Jan 29, 2023. PHOTO: AFP. Updated. 59 sec ago.

“Yeah, it’s going to be different,” she admitted, and said she would need some time off before returning to the WTA circuit in the Middle East in February. “It was a funny night, everyone was just too happy, so some of us didn’t make it today, it was too much last night,” Sabalenka laughed. “But it’s just too crazy, there’s so many thoughts in my head and I’m just trying to relax for a second.” “I’m always thinking about the match about some points and especially the last game,” said Sabalenka, on her maiden Grand Slam final. Now Sabalenka is enjoying the feeling of becoming a Grand Slam champion at the age of 24 – and finally conquering her inner demons. “I have no idea,” a slightly wincing but ebullient Sabalenka laughed, before cracking open a bottle of champagne and spraying it in celebration, Formula One-style.

The 24-year-old dazzled as she showed off her new silverware after her come-from-behind win at Rod Laver Arena on Saturday night - and revealed it wouldn't ...

I started to understand that actually I'm here because I work so hard and I'm actually good player. It was a long journey for us. I think you need to find someone else who's going to help you". 'But I knew that it's not about him. It's just something about me. He just said like, "I don't know what to do.

Aryna Sabalenka wept tears of relief and joy after breaking through for her elusive maiden grand slam title with a tension-filled three-set Australian Open ...

“I lost three grand slam semi-finals and it was a really tough time. Alas, the emerging star fell a set short in her gallant quest to emulate Barty in claiming the Australian Open title the year after winning Wimbledon. But she refused to yield, quickly striking back with a break in the fourth game of the second set, a lead the fifth seed then refused to relinquish. “It was super emotional, I was super happy that I was able to handle all of the emotions in the last game.” But it was not straightforward as Rybakina saved three match points in an epic final game before Sabalenka saluted and slumped to the court in relief and perhaps also disbelief. Sabalenka has the distinction of being the last player to topple Barty in a final, beating Australia’s former world No.1 in Madrid in 2019 before the 26-year-old’s shock retirement – 12 more titles and three grand slam crowns later – last March.

MELBOURNE: New Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka did not get much sleep on Saturday (Jan 28) night after a rambunctious come-from-behind victory, ...

"I like to pose. Advertisement

The women's champion donned a lilac look by an Australian luxury fashion label, as she took her new trophy on a gondola ride at the botanical gardens in ...

“I like to pose, especially when you’re a Grand Slam champion,” she laughed. She matched the capped-sleeve blouse and skirt featuring delicate floral appliques with a pair of royal blue [Manolo Blahnik Hangisi](https://www.manoloblahnik.com/us/hangisi-16027.html) pumps. Social

This week's "Hot Shots" is a collection of some of the best congratulatory messages sent the way of 2023 Australian Open singles champions Novak Djokovic ...

The Belarusian claimed a 4-6 6-3 6-4 victory, becoming the first player to win a singles grand slam under a neutral flag.

Novak Djokovic won his 22nd Grand Slam title while Aryna Sabalenka won her first.

This worsening situation prompted the City of Melbourne to [declare a climate and biodiversity emergency in 2019](https://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/about-council/vision-goals/eco-city/climate-change/Pages/taking-action-climate-change.aspx) that “acknowledges that temperature rise above 1.5°C will lead to major and irreversible damage to ecosystems.” And yes that’s the same year that the Australian Open began to implement their AO Heat Stress Scale. Many political and business leaders seem to be treating climate change with the urgency of a cat being asked to serve a tennis ball. Things have been night and day too, meaning average temperatures in both the day and the night have continued to rise. Keep in all that all this weather or not stuff at the 2023 Australian Open hasn’t been a heat of the moment thing. And big public health problems like climate aren’t like zits, they simply don’t go away with time and hiding out for a while in the basement. All of these measurements then have contributes to the scale goes, which goes from a low of one (temperate playing conditions) up to a high of five (suspension of play). As the tweet thread above showed, when the AO Heat Street Scale reaches a four, the Tournament Referee can allow various breaks in between sets, during which players can use showers or cooling rooms. Throughout the tournament, Australian Open officials have kept track of all four factors and measurements of these factors at five different locations in the Melbourne Sports and Entertainment Precinct. It’s been hot in a “need-to-enact-the-tennis-tournament’s-extreme-heat-policy” kind of way. That’s hot, but not in a Paris Hilton type of way. Djokovic defeated Stefanos Tsitsipas in straight sets, 6-3 7-6 (7-4) 7-6 (7-5), to capture his 10th Australian Open title. No, there’s also been the hot button issue that’s brought out a lot of fans to this year’s edition of the annual tournament Down Under in Melbourne, Australia.