For those who delight in irony, Wimbledon’s decision to ban Russian and Belarusian players is the gift that keeps on giving.
While Elena Rybakina was cutting a swathe through the women’s draw at the All England Club this summer, a body of work that would culminate with the Duchess of Cambridge presenting the Venus Rosewater dish to a player born and raised in Moscow, Aryna Sabalenka was busy putting in the hard yards during a training block in Miami.
If there was a bright side to being barred from the tournament where Sabalenka had reached her first major semi-final the previous year, when she was beaten in three tight sets by Karolina Pliskova, it was that it gave the Belarusian a chance to reset. A wretched start to the season had seen her service disintegrate; with it had gone her form, confidence and status as the world’s No 2 player. Now she had a rare chance to disembark from the treadmill of the tour and put things right.
The results have been plain to see at this US Open, where Sabalenka reached the semi-finals for the second year in a row with a 6-1, 7-6 (7-4) victory over Pliskova, avenging last summer’s defeat to the Czech in SW19. The 24-year-old believes her enforced absence from Wimbledon has improved her prospects of success in New York; paradoxically, in denying Sabalenka the chance to win one major title, the All England Club may have inadvertently helped her to win another.
“I had another pre-season,” said Sabalenka, the sixth seed, of her time in Miami. “I worked really hard, and I worked a lot on my serve. It was a tough time, especially when I was working out in the gym and there was Wimbledon playing on the TV. I would always turn it off, because I couldn’t watch it.
“I had a lot of good memories from there, and I missed it very much. That’s why I wasn’t able to watch it, because it reminded me about the great time I had there. But it’s okay. Whatever.
“They took away one opportunity from me, and I worked really hard for this one.”
Sabalenka has progressed through the draw at Flushing Meadows like an angel of vengeance. In the second round, she rebounded from a set and 5-1 down to claim an improbable win over Kaia Kanepi, saving two match points along the way. The Estonian veteran had defeated her in a final-set tiebreak at the Australian Open, a period when she was racking up double faults by the dozen, and since putting that wrong to right Sabalenka has performed with the free-swinging abandon of a woman playing with house money.
Against Pliskova, she completed her revenge mission without facing a single break point, and it was indicative of how far she has come since the dark days of early January – when she struck 39 double faults over the course of two matches in Adelaide – that, when the crunch moments came late in the second set, she went for her second serve without compunction.
That was never more apparent than when Sabalenka thundered down a 103mph second serve ace early in the tiebreak. What Pliskova would have given to have her own huge delivery functioning with such fluency. Instead it was the Czech, a finalist in New York six years ago, who struggled with double faults early in the contest, delivering three in her first two games to fall a double break behind. She would finish the opener with 15 unforced errors and just a solitary winner, a dire return for a player of her quality.
“She was playing super-aggressive, serving amazing,” said Pliskova, the 22nd seed. “I think I never played her in this kind of shape. I guess there are days like this, when she’s playing amazing, I’m not playing the best, not serving the best at all today. I just somehow couldn’t feel really the court. I was a bit lost out there.”
There were times late in the second set against Jessica Pegula when Iga Swiatek looked lost, but the world No 1 rode out the shifting rhythms of a contest featuring 13 service breaks to seal a 6-3, 7-6 (7-4) victory that puts her through to the semi-finals for the first time.
After falling behind to an early break, a change of racket brought a change of fortune for Swiatek, who reeled off five straight games to move ahead by a set and a break. But Pegula, bidding to reach her first major semi-final after losing in the last eight at the Australian Open and Roland Garros, belatedly found her range from the baseline, twice thwarting the Polish top seed as she served for the match.
“For most of the tournament, when the ball was flying away, I focused just on myself and changing the technique a little bit to keep it in,” said Swiatek, whose consternation about the lighter balls used in the women’s event has been the subject of much discussion.
“Today, I realised that I need extra help from the racquet and the string itself, because Jessie is such a tough opponent.
“I realised that it may be better to switch rackets, even though I’m only switching after the ball change. I think it helped me a lot. I think also the conditions helped me, because it was colder today. The ball wasn’t flying as much.”
Against Sabalenka, it will be flying plenty.