San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Sabalenka rallies to take women’s final
MELBOURNE, Australia — Aryna Sabalenka is no longer afraid of big stages.
Overcoming a history of buckling under the pressure of lateround Grand Slam tennis, Sabalenka, the powerful 24-year-old from Belarus, came from behind to beat Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 in the women’s singles final of the Australian Open on Saturday.
In a matchup of two of the biggest hitters in the sport, Sabalenka was a little more fearless and a few clicks more clinical than Rybakina in the crucial moments to cap off a dominant summer of tennis in Australia. 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.
Instead, the match proved a microcosm of Sabalenka’s successes — a shaky start, filled with ill-timed double faults followed by a steadying midmatch recovery before a final-set display of raw power and precision that her opponent could not answer.
And it all went down after Sabalenka decided last year to make a contrarian move in an era when athletes train their minds as hard as they train their bodies. Sabalenka fired her sports psychologist, deciding that if she was going to exorcise the demons of all those losses, she was going to have to do it on her own.
On the final, anxious point, Rybakina sent a forehand long. In an instant, Sabalenka was on her back on the blue court, crying tears of joy — and relief. “It’s just the best day of my life right now,” she would say later.
Holding the championship trophy on a stage a few minutes later, Sabalenka turned to her coaches and thanked them for sticking with her on an emotional ride to this first Grand Slam title.
“We’ve been through a lot of downs,” she said. “It’s more about you than it is about me.”
Hardly, of course, especially on a night when she had to overcome an opponent who had proved herself on a stage like this before.
Rybakina, a native Russian who became a citizen of Kazakhstan five years ago in exchange for financial support, was aiming to back up her championship run at Wimbledon and announce herself as the major threat in women’s tennis.
“I should have been more aggressive,” Rybakina said when it was over. “She was stronger mentally, physically.”
Instead it was Sabalenka who showed the mettle needed to survive the kind of high-risk, highreward tennis battle that had seemed inevitable from the first days of a tournament in which the conditions were ideal for the biggest, flattest hitters.
Entering the finals, Rybakina led the field with in aces with 45. Sabalenka was third with 29. 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 mph.
Sabalenka’s power is different from Rybakina’s, though. Both players are 6 feet tall, but Sabalenka swings a tennis racket like a lumberjack wields an ax, screaming with exertion on every stroke, every bit of struggle and emotion visible in her eyes, while Rybakina’s long arms make her seem like a human trebuchet, slinging shots in silence and giving no hint of the turmoil stirring inside.
As Sabalenka settled in and knotted the score, the match became a test of which brand of high-octane tennis could sustain the pressure of a final set for one of the biggest championships in the sport. 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.
The scoreboard showed them trading service games through the first six games, but Sabalenka was on cruise control and Rybakina had to keep finding big serves or tiny escape hatches to stay even.
Serving in the seventh game Rybakina could no longer do it. 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.
That Sabalenka was able to do so was the result of shifting how she thought about herself as a tennis player. “I started respecting myself more,” she said. “I started to understand that I am here because I worked so hard and I am a good player. I’m good enough to handle everything.”
On Sabalenka’s fourth match point, Rybakina buckled, sending that forehand long, and an overwhelmed Sabalenka flat onto her back.
Match over. Demons exorcised. And a new member of the sport’s most revered club.