At the age of 24, Aryna Sabalenka won her first Grand Slam title in Melbourne. In the final of this year’s Australian Open, she defeated Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina. This is Sabalenka’s greatest success so far. The Belarusian broke the impotence in the singles game in the Grand Slam, where she had previously been eliminated three times at the semi-final level (Wimbledon 2021, US Open 2021 and 2022).
There were angry sadness, there are tears of joy
This last tournament in New York was extremely difficult for Sabalenka. In the third set of the semi-final clash with Iga, Witek was leading 4:2, she played really well, but she did not manage to defeat the Polish woman – she lost the decisive game 4:6. Adam Romer from the “Tenisklub” magazine pointed to this Świątek match as the most important in the previous season.
In New York, Sabalenka came to the post-match press conference completely shattered. She put on dark glasses to hide her tears, but it failed anyway. – My team convinces me that I should be proud of myself. But I don’t feel that way right now. It was my third grand slam semi-final and each time I had a chance to win, which I wasted – said the Belarusian with a trembling voice and wet eyes.
Now, in Australia, Sabalenka was unstoppable. In seven meetings she lost only one set – and only in the final with Rybakina. Along the way, she eliminated Belinda Bencic returning to good shape or Magda Linette in life’s disposal. Earlier, she won the event in Adelaide without dropping a set.
After the last ball of the final in Melbourne the emotions let go. Sabalenka fell on the court and began to cry tears of happiness. She has been waiting for such a great success for a long time. After the match, she admitted that she had recently resigned from working with a psychologist. I realized that no one but me would help me. Nobody can solve my problems for me. I took responsibility for myself. I am a psychologist myself. This is a completely different approach than in the case of, for example, Świątek, who works with Daria Abramowicz.
She resigned from the psychologist
It is the mental transformation that our interlocutors pay attention to, whom we ask about what determined Sabalenka’s victory at the Australian Open. – She is relaxed, confident and more balanced – says Sport.pl Jon Wertheim, editor-in-chief and journalist of the American magazine “Sports Illustrated”.
British journalist George Bellshaw of the Tennis Unfiltered podcast points out: “Sabalenka has always been a great talent, but the biggest change this year is her mental side. He seemed to really believe he could win the tournament, and he did. Even though she lost a set in the final, she kept her composure and turned the tide of the match. Would she have collapsed a year ago in a similar situation? I suspect so.
Marco Mazzoni from the Italian portal Livetennis.it thinks similarly. “She was finally able to change her attitude on the court. She stayed more focused. Never in her career has she played a decisive set with such balance and a strong mentality as in the final of the Australian Open – Mazzoni tells us.
A different mental state also allowed Sabalence to eliminate the biggest drawback in the game recently – double faults. It was a real nightmare for her, especially at the beginning of last year. It was obvious that the Belarusian was helpless at times.
“Aryna Sabalenka found a simple way to reduce the number of double faults. She started serving … from the bottom. And there were several such services in the match. The Belarusian lost today to Rebeka Peterson, making 21 double faults,” wrote Dawid Żbik, commentator, on January 11, 2022 Eurosport.
Service nightmare
The Belarusian also committed 19 double faults a few days later at the Australian Open against Xinyu Wang. And then she set a stunning and infamous record for the number of such errors in one WTA season – she had as many as 398 of them! On average, she counted nearly eight of them per meeting.
“She improved her serve and got rid of the mental block that caused so many double faults last year,” says Wertheim. “The first pass is more precise today, and the second pass is safer with a greater margin of error,” says Mario Boccardi of the Italian portal Sportface.it.
The Belarusian herself admits that the service problems resulted from the aforementioned mental reasons. The tennis player was not always able to adapt to the conditions she encountered on different courts. This was also the case in July 2021 at the Tokyo Olympics, where she was eliminated in the second round of the Olympic tournament after losing to Donna Vekić.
By the way: it was during the competition in the capital of Japan that the famous words of Eurosport commentator Karol Stopa were spoken, who was convinced that the viewers did not hear him and allowed himself to remark: – In these conditions, Sabalenka is a f**k in a moment. She has already committed an absurd number of unforced errors. I suspect that stopping the ball is a f***ing nightmare for her.
On the other hand, it can be seen that despite such problems, Sabalenka has been in the top 10 of the WTA ranking for four years. She won 12 tournaments, she was already the second tennis player in the world – she returned to this place after the Australian Open 2023. Today, she seems to be much stronger mentally, which makes her an even greater threat to Świątek.
Exciting competition
The Polish woman and the Belarusian have already played six official matches. Sabalenka was on top twice (WTA Finals 2021 in Guadalajara and WTA Finals 2022 in Fort Worth). The Polish woman won the US Open last year, as well as tournaments in Rome, Stuttgart and Doha. Tennis players also met at the end of 2022 at the exhibition tournament in Dubai, where the leader of the ranking from Poland also won.
The clashes of Sabalenka from Świątek are full of emotions. I saw their semi-final match up close in Fort Worth, where the Belarusian came out on the court extremely determined. Some of the fans supported Sabalenka, and despite the Polish woman winning the first set 6:3, the rival was then on top 6:1, 6:4. I heard from foreign journalists in Texas that Sabalenka is always extremely determined to defeat Świątek, that she goes to matches with a Polish woman as if she were at war.
We also remember Sabalenka’s behavior after last year’s final in Stuttgart. At first, she resented the audience, and then she could not behave properly during a short photo session with a Polish woman. She made scenes after which disgust was considerable.
Interestingly, this is the next stage of the Polish-Belarusian rivalry in women’s tennis. A few years ago, we were excited about Agnieszka Radwańska’s numerous meetings with Wiktoria Azarenka, from which the Krakow woman rarely came out victorious (five wins out of 19 duels). Świątek has a positive balance with Sabalenka, but he has to watch out for an opponent who has just reached a life form. Her win in Melbourne is an alarm bell for the Polish woman.
Background politics
The rivalry between Świątek and Sabalenka also has a political subtext. A Polish woman supports Ukraine in the war with Russia, she wears a Ukrainian ribbon on her cap during matches from the beginning of the invasion. She organized a charity event in Krakow, where over PLN 2.5 million was collected for children injured as a result of warfare.
Sabalenka does not support Ukraine, although, like Świątek, she comes from a neighboring country. He still has a grudge against the authorities of Wimbledon, which, in reaction to the war in Ukraine, excluded tennis players from Russia and Belarus from last year’s edition of the tournament. Sabalenka was also banned from playing. “I’m disappointed that sport is somehow present in politics. They kicked us out of Wimbledon and what changed? Nothing – the Belarusian complained now before the Australian Open.
Sabalenka criticized the Russians for the war, but – as the Ukrainian media showed – she spent the preparation period for the 2023 season partly in Russia.
The tennis player was recently asked where she was preparing to start this year. She stated that she was only in Dubai and every day was similar. Ukrainian journalists on Twitter revealed that the Belarusian spent time in Ufa at the turn of November and December. It is the capital of Bashkortostan, a republic belonging to the Russian Federation.
Why Ufa? Probably because Sabalenka’s partner, Konstantin Koltsov, works at the local ice hockey club Salavat Yulayev. The photos published by Ukrainian journalists show that members of the authorities of the Russian club openly support the war in Ukraine. In the stands, they used a banner with the “Z” symbol, they also visited areas occupied by Russian troops.
Sabalenka met with Alexander Lukashenka more than once. Her victory at the Australian Open was greeted with great joy by the Belarusian dictator. A short video has been published in which Lukashenko celebrates the success of his compatriot. Sabalenka appeals not to combine sport with politics, but she herself – as you can see – cannot escape this connection.
Despite this, tennis legends oppose the exclusion of Sabalenka and other tennis players from Russia and Belarus from the upcoming edition of Wimbledon. – I hope that politics will not disturb Aryna Sabalence. Players should not be penalized for something they have no control over and have little to do with, said former tennis great John McEnroe. – Life is too short. Let them play and get financial rewards and ranking points – said Billie Jean King, the legend of women’s courts in “The Mirror”.
We still have to wait for decisions on the participation of Russians and Belarusians in London, but no delay is needed to conclude that 2023 will be a great rivalry between Świątek and Sabalenka. With many differences, they have one thing in common – great tennis.
Source: Sport.PL
Tristin is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his in-depth and engaging writing on sports. He currently works as a writer at 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the sports industry.
