After a summer of injury and indifferent form, Aryna Sabalenka is back.
The 26-year-old Belarusian completed an outstanding week’s work in Cincinnati with a straight-sets victory over Jessica Pegula, snapping the sixth-seeded American’s nine-match winning run with a performance of withering power and unwavering self-belief. With a week to go until the US Open, a first WTA 1000 title on hard courts in four years marks a timely resurgence for the Australian Open champion, who had not won a title since securing her second grand slam crown at Melbourne Park in January.
Sabalenka, who lost to Mirra Andreeva in the French Open quarter-finals and went on to miss Wimbledon and the Olympics with a shoulder injury, has suffered unexpected losses to Marie Bouzkova and Amanda Anisimova since returning to the fray earlier this month. But her determination to recapture her best form has been evident in Cincinnati, where she has revelled in the quick, slick playing conditions, emulating Vera Zvonareva and Ashleigh Barty by becoming only the third woman to win the title without dropping a set.
That confidence-boosting run included an emphatic semi-final win over Iga Swiatek – only her fourth in a dozen meetings with the Polish world No 1 – and she had far too much in reserve for Pegula, whose contrastingly arduous route to the final included three-set victories over Karolina Muchova, Leylah Fernandez and Paula Badosa.
“I would say that I’m really playing great tennis,” said Sabalenka after a 6-3, 7-5 victory that will encourage her to believe she can take the final step at Flushing Meadows, where she was beaten by Coco Gauff in last year’s final. “Probably not the best tennis I can play, but I’m definitely getting there, and with every match I play I’m feeling better and better. Hopefully at the US Open I can keep building the level.”
If Sabalenka’s form in Ohio has invited comparisons with this year’s title run at Melbourne Park, where she likewise triumphed without dropping a set, then the mental strength she demonstrated in handling her sole moment of crisis against Pegula harked back to her 2023 Australian Open win, when she definitively laid to rest doubts about her big-match temperament.
As Sabalenka stepped up to serve for the championship at 5-4 in the second set, she had dropped the princely sum of just four points on serve in the entire match. But a flurry of forehand errors from the Belarusian threw Pegula an unlikely lifeline, and suddenly there was a ripple of excitement among the previously subdued home crowd. The parallel with Sabalenka’s win over Swiatek, where she needed 10 match points to get over the line, was inescapable. This time, though, there would be no late drama: Sabalenka’s forehand remained shaky, but her will held firm.
“I couldn’t be happier with the level, but I was pushed a lot by my opponent,” said Sabalenka. “I think I just played really great tennis and I was focused. I wouldn’t allow those negative emotions [to] come into my head, and I was trying to stay really calm on the court and in control.
“I think that’s why, even though people were breaking my serve [late in matches], I was able to stay focused and break them back.”
After a wretched summer, both players will head to New York with renewed optimism. While Sabalenka reclaims the No 2 ranking she temporarily relinquished to Gauff after Roland Garros, Pegula can reflect with satisfaction on a surge that has brought a third WTA 1000 crown in Toronto as well as a fifth final at this level. It has been a welcome return to form for the 30-year-old, who missed the French Open with injury and suffered second-round losses at the Australian Open, Roland Garros and the Olympics.
Rosie Casals and Serena Williams are the only other women to have made the Canadian Open and Cincinnati finals in the same year, and it was Williams whom Pegula referenced in her on-court speech afterwards, telling Sabalenka – who hit 10 aces and won 91% of her first-serve points – “It felt like Serena today, with the way you were serving; I may have wanted Serena instead of Aryna.”
“She’s tough when she’s playing [so well], especially on these fast courts,” Pegula later elaborated. “It’s hard to draw out the points and get her moving when she’s playing first-strike tennis really well and not making a lot of errors either. So kudos to her for this whole week, she’s played some really incredible tennis.
“But I’m really proud of myself for the last couple of weeks, for the level I’ve been able to display, playing a lot of matches, and I think proving to myself that I can win a lot of matches in a row and be able to handle a lot of different challenges with the conditions and different cities and courts.”