Belarusian tennis player Aryna Sabalenka wins US Open for the first time in her career
Aryna Sabalenka became the winner of the US Open in New York, having broken the resistance of the American Jessica Pegula in two sets. The Belarusian tennis player, who became the strongest at the Australian Open in January, showed the best overall result in the Grand Slam tournaments this season. In addition, in terms of the number of titles, Sabalenka surpassed another Belarusian athlete - former world number one Victoria Azarenka.
The emotional feminine element in the passionate and sensual tennis of Aryna Sabalenka is much more visible than in the more reliable but less temperamental game demonstrated, for example, by the newly-minted US Open finalist Jessica Pegula or the world's number one Iga Swiatek. At the same time, the Belarusian's current triumph has also become a triumph of dry logic, since over the past three years it was Sabalenka, who, having failed to win the title in New York, won 16 matches there - more than anyone else.
In its own way, this is entirely natural. The Belarusian tennis player’s victories at Roland Garros and Wimbledon are quite possibly still ahead, but she has not yet managed to show her best qualities there. On the Parisian clay, on a bad day for herself, Sabalenka can relatively easily run into an insurmountable obstacle like the one she erected Mirra Andreeva was ahead of her three months ago, and London grass requires fine-tuning in the technique of playing at high speeds with a low bounce of the ball and is more sensitive to psychological changes, which often happen to the temperamental Belarusian. But the hard Australian and American courts, which, although different in some parameters, are still similar in many ways, are her element. On them, Sabalenka is most conveniently able to demonstrate what she is now, perhaps, the strongest in - power in the game on the back line. There she feels most confident and managed to win two majors on hard in one season, which earlier in the Open era (since 1968), unlike Serena Williams herself, only four other tennis players managed to do - Steffi Graf, Monica Seles, Martina Hingis and Angelique Kerber.
Sabalenka had suffered disappointing three-set losses in New York in the previous three years.
First in two semi-finals – the sensational Canadian Leylah Fernandez and the almost flawless at that time Iga Swiatek, and in the final twelve months ago – the American Coco Gauff, who after her failure in the first set was able to take advantage of her opponent’s mental weakness. The match against Pegula, which lasted just under two hours, was also difficult. For Sabalenka, it turned out to be as ragged and uneven as the entire current season, which began with an Australian triumph, continued with a six-month slump without titles, associated, among other things, with a shoulder injury, and, finally, was marked by the current takeoff.
In the first set, she was losing with a break, then took four games in a row and led 5:2, after which she allowed the American to catch up with her, but still found the moral strength not to let things go to a tie-break. The second set consisted of three contrasting segments. The Belarusian was winning 3:0, was behind 3:5 and again forced herself to pull herself together, taking the last four games. In the end, 7:5, 7:5 in less than two hours. Having executed 40 aces, including 6 aces, she was more than twice as many as her opponent, who had only 17 such accurate “shots”, and she executed 18 of 23 attempts to the net. The reward for her skill, courage and ability to overcome herself was not only 2000 rating points, but also $3.6 million from the total tournament prize fund of $75 million.
"It's hard for me to describe my feelings," the newly crowned champion said at the awards ceremony. "I want to cry, laugh, and do all of this at the same time. I wish that everyone could experience what I'm experiencing now."
Sabalenka is only 26 years old. She doesn’t have many titles yet – just 15 – and she still has many more ahead of her. But if she were to give Pegula this match, there would be no escaping the parallels between her career and that of Victoria Azarenka, another Belarusian women’s tennis star who won the Australian Open in 2012 and 2013 but lost in the New York finals and lost there again seven years later. Now, Sabalenka has surpassed her compatriot in the number of major victories, although she has spent much more time at the top of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) rankings – 51 weeks versus 8. To overcome this significant gap, Sabalenka first needs to regain the lead she seized last year just after the US Open, but then lost at the very end of the season. And now she has another good chance to overtake Iga Swiatek. After all, in terms of points scored this season, she is now only slightly behind the Polish player - by just over 400.
