Belarus’ Aryna Sabalenka and Kazakhstan’s Elena Rybakina are approaching the Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner stratosphere of tennis.
The world’s No. 1 and soon-to-be No. 2 players have dominated the WTA Tour for the past several months and played a championship final befitting their lofty status at the BNP Paribas Open on Sunday in Indian Wells, Calif.
Sabalenka fended off a championship point in the third-set tiebreaker and defeated Rybakina 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (6) in hot, dry conditions in the California desert as they battled for 2:31.
Sabalenka avenged a three-set loss to Rybakina in the Australian Open final and improved to 9-7 in their all-time series, which includes a 2-4 ledger in WTA finals.
“What a day. It’s really hot,” Sabalenka said in her post-match interview. “I’m not sure if I can make sense right now, but I’ll try my best. First of all, congrats Elena on another great tournament. I really hope we’re gonna face each other in the very last stages of the tournaments and bring these battles on court.
“And… thanks (to) my fiance. What a week. Getting a puppy. Getting engaged. Winning a title. I’ll definitely remember it for the rest of my life.”
Sabalenka served for the match at 5-4, but was broken in five points. Rybakina faced five break points in her service game, but held serve. When the two returned to the court, the No. 1 seed won her game at love to set up the deciding breaker.
Rybakina gained a match point at 6-5 and hit a blistering serve to Sabalenka’s backhand. But the Belarussian returned it and sent a sizzling cross-court backhand past Rybakina on her next groundstroke.
Rybakina again came up with a big serve at 6-6, but Sabalenka put it back in play and Rybakina eventually send a volley over the baseline. On her first match point, Sabalenka’s powerful serve forced an overhit on the return to earn her 23rd WTA title.
Rybakina was in control early in the match, breaking in the sixth game to capture the first set and breaking again on a subdued Sabalenka during the first game of the second set.
But Sabalenka blistered a brilliant return at 0-15 and went on to break Rybankina at love to knot the set at 1-1. She won four straight games en route to sending the match to a deciding set.
Rybakina won 104 of 204 points. Neither player got better than 58% of their first serves in, but Rybakina totaled 12 aces and only two double faults, while Sabalenka posted 10 and 3.
Rybakina’s streak of 10 consecutive wins over Top 10 players came to an end.
“It was a very difficult match,” said Rybakina, who will move up to No. 2 in the WTA rankings on Monday. “Congratulations to Aryna and her team for all the achievements and this finally title. Hopefully we will play very soon again in this stage of the tournament. I want to say thank you to my team. Not the result we wanted today, but still it’s been a good couple weeks. We try to take positives and move on for the next one.”
–Field Level Media
