In the altitude of Madrid, Aryna Sabalenka continues to scale the heights.
A fortnight after she was beaten in straight sets by Iga Swiatek in Stuttgart, Sabalenka showed steely resolve to turn the tables on the Polish world No 1 and claim her second Madrid Open title in three years.
Having failed to take a set from Swiatek in their three previous clay-court meetings, the Belarusian resisted an inspired fightback from the two-time French Open champion to prevail 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, securing a tour-leading third title of what is fast becoming a career-defining season.
Sabalenka now stands alongside Petra Kvitova, Serena Williams and Simona Halep as a multiple title winner in the Spanish capital. Few would bet against her joining that elite trio as a multiple grand slam champion. Having won her first major at the Australian Open in January, the 25-year-old has amassed five WTA 1000 titles and is rapidly gaining ground on Swiatek at the top of the rankings, with a 6,000-point gap at the start of the year now reduced to 1,744 points.
“It was really intense,” said Sabalenka after shading a contest decided by a sequence of seven three-game runs in either direction from 3-3 in the first set.
“It’s always tough battles against Iga. She always pushes me to the limits. I really enjoy our battles. Hopefully, we can play many more finals this season.
“I definitely respect her a lot. She’s a great player and what she did last season, and what she keeps doing, it’s really motivated me a lot to improve, to keep working hard, to keep fighting.”
It is too early to suggest that women’s tennis has a defining rivalry. For all the rarity of the world’s top two contesting finals at WTA 1000 level – it last happened in 2014, when Serena Williams defeated Li Na in the Miami Open final – it is only a few weeks since the Belarusian’s rivalry with Elena Rybakina was being hailed as the next big thing. Rybakina, who avenged her loss to Sabalenka in the Australian Open final with a straight-sets victory in Indian Wells, and has handed Swiatek two of her four defeats this year, will undoubtedly be there or thereabouts when the big prizes are decided in the weeks and months ahead.
The same goes for Swiatek, who struggled to find rhythm and depth on her serve in the quick conditions at the Caja Mágica, but can expect to fare better in Rome and Roland Garros, where the slower pace enables her to showcase her outstanding movement and defensive skills to maximum effect. She remains the player to beat on the red dirt.
Even so, it would be foolhardy to underestimate the significance of this result. While Sabalenka’s victory is not quite up there with Tracy Austin ending Chris Evert’s 125-match winning streak on clay at the Foro Italico in 1979, it was momentous in its own way. Swiatek’s only previous loss in a clay-court final came against Slovenia’s Polona Hercog four years ago in Lugano, when the Pole was an unknown 17-year-old. Swiatek had since won six successive finals on the red stuff but, on a day when she was never able to contain Sabalenka’s fearless ball-striking for long enough to assert sustained control, it was testimony to her competitive spirit that she was even able to force a decider.
That certainly looked unlikely after Sabalenka, steadily growing in authority, had clinched an absorbing first set. The former champion had vowed to learn from her setback in Stuttgart, where she frequently created opportunities only to overpress at the critical moment. True to her word, she did indeed adopt a more measured approach – and yet there was no holding back. After battling through several deuces to hold her opening service game, the Belarusian delivered an emphatic statement of intent in her second, hammering down first serves and feasting on Swiatek’s short replies as she rifled winners off both wings. The tone was set.
Powerful and purposeful on serve, where she frequently tucked up Swiatek with vicious deliveries into the body, Sabalenka was barely less effective on the return. Combining her signature weight of shot with immaculate depth, Sabalenka limited her opponent’s ability to dictate the baseline exchanges, preferring to go long than allow the Pole the feelgood factor of battering short balls into the corners. The message was clear: if Sabalenka was going to lose, it would be on her own terms.
There was an uncharacteristic flash of anger from Swiatek when she snatched at a forehand to go 15-40 down in the fifth game, the Pole slapping her thigh in annoyance. Helped by a crushing forehand, but helped even more by some loose play from Sabalenka, she navigated her way out of danger on that occasion. Three games later, though, a wildly miscued backhand sparked a frenetic volley of excited chatter from Swiatek towards her box. Two more errors off the same wing handed Sabalenka the first break, and she served out the set confidently, drilling a huge backhand into the corner that Swiatek could only prod at despairingly.
With trademark determination, Swiatek returned from a bathroom break to force her way back into the contest, converting her first break point of the match as Sabalenka rolled a forehand tamely into the net. The Belarusian quickly hit back, wresting Swiatek’s serve from her as she punctuated a lengthy struggle with a screaming backhand winner, but the Pole was not to be denied. Swiatek survived more danger at 3-3, fending off two break points, before smoking a forehand winner in the next game to secure a second break. This time, it proved decisive.
With the contest level despite Swiatek struggling at times, Sabalenka, producing some of her finest tennis, might easily have let her head drop. In the past, she probably would have done. But the woman with the tiger tattoo is a different competitive animal these days. She also has form for translating defeat in Stuttgart into victory in Madrid. Two years ago, Sabalenka avenged a loss to Ashleigh Barty on the indoor clay of Stuttgart’s Porsche Arena with a three-set win over the Australian at the Caja Mágica. So it was again. Sabalenka opened up a 3-0 lead in the decider, maintained her composure when Swiatek forced her way back to level, and then drove for the finish line.
“In the second set I saw what I could do and I tried to keep that in the third,” said Swiatek, who looked distraught after Sabalenka denied her two break points in the third game of the decider.
“I did my best to keep the intensity and still keep the control here. Maybe next year I’m going to know better if I can do even more [in Madrid] or not, but for sure I did 100% of what I could, so no regrets.”