Aryna Sabalenka was once so unpredictable and inconsistent that it was sometimes difficult to watch her play tennis.
She hit the ball harder than any other player in women’s tennis, but an emotional breakdown seemed only a point or two away. The pressure to live up to her extraordinary talent seemed a burden she couldn’t escape. A few years ago, Sabalenka even went through a phase where her serve was so bad that she resorted to an underarm shot.
Now look at her.
Not only is she a three-time Grand Slam champion after winning the US Open 7-5, 7-5 against Jessica Pegula on Saturday, but she is now also the most promising player in women’s tennis.
And all in all, she is probably the best.
At 26, Sabalenka’s US Open triumph seems a long time coming, after two heartbreaking semifinal losses and last year’s collapse in the final against Coco Gauff. But it’s also a testament to a fascinating athlete who has developed into something that might surprise even some of her biggest supporters.
Not only is she the most consistent player in women’s tennis, she is also arguably the toughest and most resilient under pressure – just a few years after she found it impossible to control her emotions and tempers in those big matches.
“I’m super proud of myself,” she said during the awards ceremony on the field. “I never say this, but I’m super proud of myself.”
That’s what it should be.
Among active players in women’s tennis, Iga Swiatek has five Grand Slam titles and is ranked number 1 in the world, Naomi Osaka has won four Majors but it is questionable whether she can reach that level again, and now Sabalenka is hot on their heels with three Majors.
But in the most important matches and at every Grand Slam with the exception of the French Open, there is no longer any doubt as to who is the favorite to win the tournament.
Sabalenka has won three of the last eight Grand Slam tournaments she has competed in (two in Australia, one in the United States), with one loss in the final, three losses in the semifinals and one appearance in the quarterfinals.
That’s just remarkable consistency and excellence on all surfaces, even compared to Swiatek, who has won two of her last eight Grand Slams (both on clay) with two quarterfinal losses, two fourth-round losses and two third-round losses.
While Swiatek now seems to play with such heaviness and fear at the biggest tournaments, Sabalenka has broken through the mental barriers that once seemed like an eternal curse.
Just a few years ago this would have been unthinkable.
From the moment she emerged as a top player, Sabalenka’s strengths and weaknesses were pretty clearly defined. She could absolutely cover the ball, one of the few players in women’s tennis whose groundstroke power was essentially on par with that of the men. You could – and still can – feel and hear how much power and muscle she puts into every shot.
When she was there, she was really there.
But the disadvantages for Sabalenka were considerable. There was never really a plan B, and the more the pressure increased during the tournament, the more unreliable her game became. When the big cuts on the ball also went wrong, things quickly turned into a disaster.
In 2021, Sabalenka reached her first Grand Slam semifinal at Wimbledon and was as relaxed as a player can be, losing 4-6 to Karolina Pliskova in the third set. Just a few months later, Sabalenka was the clear favorite to win the US Open title, but fell in the third set of the semifinal to unseeded upstart Leylah Fernandez.
To her great credit, however, Sabalenka did it. After Fernandez made a series of mistakes to earn a place in the final, she came into the press room and explained it quite simply: “This is what we call pressure. That’s why I’m a little bit disappointed with this match because I had a lot of chances and I didn’t take them. Well, that’s life. If you don’t take your chances, someone else will. I will try to improve. I will keep working and fighting and I believe that one day it will happen.”
Sabalenka has had to deal with a few blows along the way, but she’s finally come out on top. She’s managed to channel her power and become a more thoughtful and strategic player, while still maintaining her trademark aggressiveness. Even more impressively, she’s figured out how to be comfortable with discomfort in the heat of battle when things don’t always go her way.
In Saturday’s final, Sabalenka was clearly the player who scored more points, but Pegula managed to hold on and fight back in the second set until she actually took a 5-4 lead and had a chance to pull the win through to the end.
It would have been natural for Sabalenka to have had flashbacks to last year, when Gauff did more or less the same thing, taking it to a third set, involving the crowd and unsettling Sabalenka to the point where she was mentally exhausted.
“The good news is that I’m playing against myself,” Sabalenka said that night after smashing a bag full of rackets in the locker room. “The bad (news) is that I still have these problems when I play against myself. But that’s OK. I’m going to work harder.”
The real test for Sabalenka came in this 5-4 match when Pegula served for the set and the momentum was on her side. And what did Sabalenka do? She hit the ball – boom, boom, boom – and got three break points. And on her third attempt, Sabalenka again drove Pegula onto the defensive and confidently found the open field for a winner.
It was the answer of a champion, and now women’s tennis has a real problem. Sabalenka is so much more powerful and aggressive than any other player that she is usually the player who determines who wins or loses. But now Sabalenka can no longer be counted on to self-destruct. Swiatek, Gauff and the rest of them will have to find a way to take the title away from her whenever she has even the whiff of a Grand Slam title.
With a US Open trophy in her collection, the dam on Sabalenka’s attack has officially broken. If she has truly become such a mental monster under pressure, Saturday’s win was just the beginning.
