It is not in Aryna Sabalenka’s disposition to release her hold on Iga Swiatek’s coattails.
The 25-year-old Belarusian has had trouble playing at her best throughout the Madrid Open, but she triumphed in an exciting semifinal match against Elena Rybakina on Thursday night with her best game of the competition.
In the process, Sabalenka broke Rybakina’s 16-match winning streak on clay, preserved her defense of the championship she won against Swiatek, and made sure Coco Gauff would not pass her as the world’s number two.
When Rybakina, who had hardly moved all night, lined up an appealing short ball that would have given her a match point late in the second set, none of those options seemed likely. However, world No. 4 mishandled a forehand, giving Sabalenka the opportunity to break instead. When she repeated the error with another erroneous shot, Sabalenka found herself with an improbable path back into the match, which she had trailed by a set and a break.
She took advantage of the break with both hands, fighting her way to a 1-6, 7-5, 7-6 (7-5) triumph that scheduled a rematch with Swiatek, the player who had earlier beaten Madison Keys in straight sets.
Given that she first had trouble remembering it, Sabalenka may have stated very ungraciously, “Probably that was the key moment.” “I have no idea how I managed to win this match. I took advantage of my opportunity, whereas she most likely missed hers. That might have been the crucial element; I can’t even recall. I have a horrible memory.
This latter assertion was as implausible as the Belarusian’s purported memory of Rybakina’s crucial error. When asked if the victory over Swiatek last year was the best match of her career on clay, Sabalenka went so far as to say it was the best of the 26 tour-level finals she had participated in.
“It was unquestionably the best match I have ever played, especially on a clay court,” she remarked. “I believe that the level was simply very high. The game was powerful, intense, and well-maintained. That, I believe, was my best-ever final.
If Sabalenka wants to hold onto her title on Saturday, she will need to perform at a level comparable to Swiatek’s overpowering performance against Keys. The Pole, who had lost her lone set of the competition to Beatriz Haddad Maia in the previous round, went through the gears with ease against Keys, taking an early break and then extending her lead in signature fashion. In the second set, the American rated 20th had a few but infrequent moments. It was never on the cards for her to defeat Swiatek in Cincinnati in 2022.
“I think I’m getting better at tennis every day,” Swiatek remarked. Conversely, though, it is inconsequential because each day is unique. In my opinion, maintaining the appropriate mindset and level of focus is more important during finals.
Those attributes were abundant in Sabalenka’s victory over Rybakina, which was a result of both her sheer willpower and her performance. Rybakina’s devastating serving and accurate, forceful play off the court suffocated the Belarusian early on, as she was put down in less than twenty-four minutes. Sabalenka looked defeated as Rybakina grabbed another early break to take a 3-1 lead in the second set. But after forcing her way back into the match, she battled Rybakina point for point in the closing games, fending off two break possibilities at 5-5 and taking the first five points of the decisive tiebreak to set up an unforgettable victory.
Taken to the distance, Rybakina had won 12 straight sets and was undefeated in deciding sets since her shocking loss to Anna Blinkova at the Australian Open. She could only look back with regret at the outcome. The most recent of those three-set victories came in the previous round when she overcame Yulia Putintseva after trailing by two match points, but that instance’s incredible winners that helped her escape difficulty were not going to happen again.
Instead, Rybakina was left to brood over the crucial forehand error that cost her a match point and the chance to go after a second consecutive clay-court championship after her victory run in Stuttgart last month.
“It’s unfortunate to lose,” Rybakina remarked. It’s unfortunate when you get this chance, but I didn’t play it correctly when I had the ball on top of the net at 5-4, 30-30. It is what it is, really.
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