Australian Open champion targets more Slam success
DUBAI: Aryna Sabalenka's first taste of a Grand Slam was the qualifying rounds of the US Open six years ago. The Belarusian played her first women's tournament as a 13-year-old.
So me three years later, she won three singles titles on the ITF circuit. In the two years preceding her maiden major title at Melbourne Park in January, the 24-year-old had made three Slam semifinals. Sabalenka was the queen-in-waiting.
"I believed in myself, but I was waiting for so long. I was working so hard. I couldn't get it. I had tough losses in the semifinals,' she said of her journey. "When I won, I couldn't believe it in the beginning. For the next week, I was like, Oh, my God! I did it!'
Sabalenka, the world No 2, seeded second at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships this week, underlined that her Melbourne Park triumph, was not a tick mark on her bucket list. "Now I have even more motivation, to work hard, ' she said, "just to feel that again."
Sabalenka flaunts a strapping build, standing at 5 ft 11. "I would like to just focus on myself. The only reason why I won the Australian Open is because I was focusing on myself. I didn't think about expectations. I just kept telling myself that I have to bring my level on court, if I do that, I will have a lot of chances to win."
There's a statuesque order to Sabalenka. In the way she sits, in the manner she flips around or surges forward. It's a kind of a physicality rarely seen on the WTA Tour. It also had her serve in knots these last couple of years. Her newly tweaked service action has given her 81 aces from her two tournaments this year. She also has 51 double faults, the most in the top-15 of the WTA rankings.
"It was biomechanics first, then it was mental. I watched a lot of videos of my serve. I understand that there is a lot of wrong motion on my serve fr om the biomechanics side. I cannot put the serve in. So, I just changed the motion a lot."
Sabalenka started work on her serve last fall. "I started working on my biomechanics. I started realising things a lot more," she said, adding that she needed to change her mindset before she started working on her action. "During the claycourt season, I started working through it, if my serve wasn't working, I was still trying to win with different weapons."
It's not that her serve doesn't stray anymore, but no matter what's happening with her play, Sabalenka doesn't fold. That's the decision, the rest maybe direction.
