Sabalenka’s new mentality faces Rybakina’s resolve
When Aryna Sabalenka is really deeply contemplating her Australian Open final rematch with Elena Rybakina, it won’t be that breakthrough success in 2023 that she’ll be dialing in on. It won’t be the other three Grand Slam finals she’s won, either, including the most recent at the US Open. Top-ranked Sabalenka will be trying to derive more motivation from the five finals she lost in 2025.
“I actually know what was wrong in all of those finals that I played and I lost,” Sabalenka said. “I would say that last year was lots of lessons, lots of things to learn about myself, and definitely not going to happen again this season.” The list of finals losses included the WTA Finals decider in November when she lost in three sets to Rybakina, who took a record $5.2 million in prize money.
Sabalenka was upset in the Australian Open final 12 months ago by Madison Keys, ending her 20-match winning streak at Melbourne Park. She lost the French Open final in three sets to Coco Gauff - after beating Iga Swiatek, winner of the three previous championships at Roland Garros — in the semis. At Wimbledon, she lost in the semifinals to Amanda Anisimova. She also lost finals in Stuttgart and Indian Wells in a year when she won four titles.
A new approach: “It’s just a different mentality that I will try to have in each final that I play,” the top-ranked Sabalenka said. “I feel like those frustrations were coming from not agreeing of what’s going on in the moment.” Sabalenka has had to learn to let go of those frustrations, or distractions or things that make her mad, and return her focus solely to winning the next point.
She achieved that in her semifinal win over Elina Svitolina, when the chair umpire called her for hindrance in the fourth game — a decision that she said was unprecedented, and which she disputes. Sabalenka broke serve in that game and pretty much dominated the match. “Right now my mentality is like I’m ready to do whatever, whatever is going to be in that finals, I’m ready to go out there and fight with what I have,” she said.
“When I have this mentality, I play my best tennis. That’s my approach to the finals this season.” Sabalenka is on an 11-match winning streak, after opening the season with a title at the Brisbane International. She hasn’t dropped a set en route to the final, her fourth in succession at the Australian Open, and nor has Rybakina. That hasn’t happened at a Grand Slam since 2008.
Another pertinent stat: The same two players appearing in the season-ending championship final one year and the final of the season-opening major the next hasn’t happened since 1999-2000. Martina Hingis and Lindsay Davenport were involved in that. Hingis’ name is prominent this weekend, because she’s the last woman to reach four or more consecutive finals in Australia. The only other, in the Open era, was Evonne Goolagong Cawley.
Don’t mention rematch: The win in 2023 was Sabalenka’s Grand Slam breakthrough, fulfilling the tremendous promise she’d shown but that, until then, was hampered by nerves and inconsistency with her serve. “I’m not going to like on that final, because me and her, we both are different players,” Sabalenka said. “We went through different things. We’re much stronger mentally and physically, and we’re playing better tennis now. “I’ll approach this as completely different match, and we have long history after that final. So I’ll approach this match as the very first one.”
Rybakina’s return: Rybakina, who was born in Moscow but represents Kazakhstan, will take a similar approach after advancing this time with a semifinal win over Jessica Pegula, conceding she got tight at the end when she was broken twice while serving for the match and took almost a half-hour between her first and winning match points. Three years ago, the 2022 Wimbledon champion went into the Australian final as the only Grand Slam winner in the match. She took the first set before going down 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.
This will be her first major final since then. Rybakina had only advanced past the quarterfinals at the Slams once more - at Wimbledon in 2024 - before arriving in Australia as the reigning WTA Finals champion. “Yeah, (2023 final) we played here, it was very close. I think I throughout the match of course I had some little opportunities, but in the end of this third set, I think Aryna stepped in. She served much better.
Yeah, she deserved that win,” Rybakina said. “So of course many years passed, a lot of matches has been played. Hopefully with all the experience which I got from this last match, last time final I played here, I can bring it to Saturday’s match. “Yeah, fight till the end, and hopefully this time it’s going to go my way.
