Aryna Sabalenka’s relentless tennis: What it is like to face her power, mentality and new variety
MELBOURNE, Australia — “Her ball? It’s a rocket,” said world No. 10 Daria Kasatkina.
“It’s like winners everywhere,” added Paula Badosa, the world No. 12.
“Sometimes you’re like, ‘I’m just walking around the court because I feel like she’s playing Playstation’.”
Kasatkina and Badosa were talking about the toughest challenge in women’s tennis right now: taking on the world No. 1, Aryna Sabalenka. Badosa was speaking after playing well but losing 6-4, 6-2 to her close friend in Thursday’s Australian Open semifinal, which was Sabalenka’s 20th straight win at Melbourne Park.
If she can make it 21 on Saturday, then Sabalenka will become the first woman since Martina Hingis in 1999 to pull off an Australian Open three-peat. Sabalenka is also the reigning U.S. Open champion, and she has won 33 of her last 34 Grand Slam matches on hard courts.
Next to attempt tennis’ version of Mission Impossible is the American world No. 19, Madison Keys, who, after reaching the final, said that Sabalenka is a reference point for her own game. Both are huge hitters, but Sabalenka has elevated herself by developing complete conviction in her tennis and adding variety to go with her power.
Ahead of the final, surveyed the locker room to get a sense of what it’s like to face Sabalenka, and how she has transformed herself from someone liable to wobble mentally into one of the toughest competitors in the sport.
Many players tacitly admit to a sense of helplessness against Sabalenka, because of the completeness of her game. “Aggressive, goes for the lines, can change directions,” Badosa said in a news conference after losing to a player who has described her as a “soulmate”.
“When a ball is coming strong, she’s able to change directions very easily. Fast, serving well, everything well. That’s how a No. 1 plays.” Badosa joked that when she was talking to her friend post-match on Thursday, she was saying: “It was really unfair for me that she played this level today.”
Iga Swiatek, the world No. 2 and Sabalenka’s biggest rival, agrees: “She has variety, and she can play flat, she can play topspin,” Swiatek said in a news conference this week.
“Basically I would say that Aryna is a complete player.”
Kasatkina told a small group of reporters: “She’s got the power. She’s moving now on court much better than few years ago. She’s now also very good in defence. She’s got more variety than before, and her serve goes 200 kilometers per hour (124 mph). I mean, that’s tough. That’s tough.”
Some players cut to the chase. Mirra Andreeva said in a news conference in Melbourne: “Honestly, I’m so tired to play against her.”
Andreeva has now lost four of her five matches against Sabalenka, which is at least a better record than Zheng Qinwen’s against the same player. Zheng, the world No. 5, has lost all five of her meetings with Sabalenka, including last year’s Australian Open final.
“It’s hard to say when is the time I can beat her,” Zheng said in a news conference ahead of the tournament.
“She’s just a really complete player right now,” added world No. 4, Jasmine Paolini, while Donna Vekic, the world No. 19, said: “She has everything.”
Sabalenka’s power has always been her trademark. Her evolution over the last couple of years, which began in earnest when she won her first major at the 2023 Australian Open, has been mental as much as physical.
Sabalenka herself often refers to her mental strength, and before the tournament she said that her never-say-die spirit is one of her biggest weapons.
Badosa, who knows Sabalenka better than almost anyone, agrees: “I think when she feels that pressure, when she feels those big challenges, she becomes even stronger,” Badosa said in an interview.
“She converts into a tiger. She loves that. That’s what makes her the best.”
Despite her aura as defending champion, Sabalenka’s matches have not always been straightforward this year. She has had dips on her serve and has occasionally been prone to extended periods of errors, but she has also been able to regroup when down in matches.
“When she felt herself slipping away, (and being) a little more emotional or a little bit distracted, she was able to pull herself back in. Each round she’s doing this better and better,” her performance coach Jason Stacy said in a news conference Friday. He pointed to the way Sabalenka stayed calm during her quarterfinal win over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, when she was twice a break down in the deciding set.
“She didn’t always have control of her emotions, it was just a thousand miles an hour or zero,” Stacy said.
“There was not much in between. Whatever that was, it wasn’t in her control.
“So it was definitely something we worked on. But innately, though, that’s something that’s always been inside of her.”
Keys, Saturday’s opponent, is most impressed by how Sabalenka does not take a backwards step no matter what the scoreboard is saying.
“She plays such fearless tennis. I think a lot of people, no matter what, even if it was a tight point, you kind of expect them to play a little bit more conservative or back down a little bit, and you know she’s not going to do that.
Asked if Sabalenka was a reference point for her given their similar styles, Keys said: “Definitely. I have always been impressed with how she’s been able to do that. The one thing I really wanted to try to be better at was not playing more passive in big points.”
Keys’ coach and husband, Bjorn Fratangelo, believes that Sabalenka’s ability to raise her level in the biggest moments sets her apart. Against Pavlyuchenkova, Sabalenka immediately broke back on both occasions she was broken.
“I was watching that Pavlyuchenkova match in the room in the hotel, and there just wasn’t a doubt in my mind that she was going to win,” he said.
That’s kind of how you feel with Novak (Djokovic) when he plays most matches, Serena (Williams) when she played most matches, Roger (Federer), Rafa (Nadal). I think she has that now.
“I think the difference with her and Iga is Iga brings that sort of Nadal mentality towards every single point, where I would say Sabalenka’s mindset is a little more Federer-like: you can throw in some errors, people will hold serve, but at the crunch moments, she’s going to win.”
Sabalenka has not been complacent about her easy power, instead refining her game and adding tools to complement it. Since a chastening defeat to Coco Gauff in Toronto in 2022, Sabalenka has completely remade her serve, eliminating the sprees of double faults that used to pepper her matches. After exercises and training designed to fix mental obstacles when serving didn’t help, she worked biomechanics expert Gavin MacMillan to physically raze her serve to the ground and start it again.
It isn’t always smooth: she was broken in her first four service games against Clara Tauson in the fourth round in Melbourne; her opponents have broken her serve 16 times in her six matches. She has only dropped one set as a result.
Her opponents still speak of the huge improvement in the shot. Jessica Pegula, who Sabalenka beat to win the 2024 U.S. Open, said in a news conference: “Before she used to have a big serve, but now there’s much more control, it’s much more consistent.
“That variable that you kind of hope would go off doesn’t really seem to go off as much anymore.”
After losing their match last Friday, Tauson said: “I think the biggest difference was her second serve was better than mine.”
Sabalenka, who stands at 5 feet 11 inches (182cm), is also a much better mover than before, which has helped her use and absorb her opponents’ power rather than always generating it herself. “She changes directions very well — and she reacts very quickly to the fast ball as well,” Badosa said.
Variety is the other big addition to Sabalenka’s game. At the 2024 Italian Open, she was struggling with an injury against Elina Svitolina, and was unable to unload on her groundstrokes. She started hitting drop shots to shorten points — a shot she had been reluctant to hit out of fear it was too risky — and since then they have become a key element to her game in tight moments.
Previously seen as a big-hitter whose game was liable to break down, she now has many other options when her serve and forehand are not firing. Against Pegula at the U.S. Open, she hit three drop shots, one of them a volley, to pinch the first set.
“I’ve noticed she’s starting mixing in a lot more slices, dropshots, coming to the net,” said the American.
“Before I felt like when I would play her, you would always tend to know something would kind of break down, whether it was her movement or her hands or her serve, whatever. Now that’s not happening as much.”
Expanding the Sabalenka toolshed has been a big priority for her and her team.
“As she gets more confidence that she can do it, we can mix it up more,” said coach Anton Dubrov in a news conference on Friday. “If something is not going to work well, she always knows she has a plan B, a backup plan, so she can always come back to what she feels better doing.
“She understands that if she will not play her best game, that she still has chances because she is going to be solid on the court without trying to play Russian roulette — like it’s everything or nothing.
“She can adapt and shift to something else and put the same pressure on the opponent all the time. The opponents, they know when they’re going to face Aryna that she can change all the time. So they understand they have also be on the same level all the time.”
That’s a frightening proposition for an opponent, with Kaia Kanepi the last person to beat Sabalenka at Melbourne Park in 2022.
Keys will have to produce a pretty much flawless performance if she is to win her first Grand Slam title Saturday.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Tennis, Women's Tennis
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