Aryna Sabalenka has started 2026 as she means to go on as the world No 1 retained her Brisbane Open title against Marta Kostyuk.
She was happy, stable and played well all week, winning the tournament without dropping a set. The lack of a post-match handshake from the Ukrainian couldn’t even taint life. When everything is going well, it’s easier to be chill.
Melbourne was also the Belarusian’s happy place until Madison Keys came along 12 months ago and stopped the two-time champion’s 20-match winning streak at the venue.
It was the first of two unedifying outbursts during the 2025 WTA Tour season with the other taking place at Roland Garros a few months later.
A smashed racket courtside on Rod Laver and a tetchy comment about her losing the Paris final – rather than Coco Gauff winning it – revealed an inability to cope with extreme disappointment. She needs to recalibrate her attitude to triumph and disaster.
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Her US Open loss to Gauff in 2023 was bravely negotiated through tears and with a few well-placed jokes in front of a vociferous Arthur Ashe crowd. It’s a shame that her subsequent two reverses in Slam finals weren’t similar models of grace in defeat.
Of course, nobody’s perfect.
Sabalenka’s emotional highs and lows are essentially the bridge for fans and ordinary folk to connect. She’s human and shows it.
However, when she demonstrates unfiltered rage, it adversely affects her chances of success at the business end of the big ones.
“I think the main lesson that I learned is that no matter what, it doesn’t matter how I feel, how frustrated I am inside, I still have to try to stay calm and try to think clear, just try to focus on the plan that I have for the match. No matter what, stay in control,” the 27-year-old said at the end of last year.
She has been working through the positive channelling of her thought process with coaches Anton Dubrov and Jason Stacy.
Sabalenka has been trying to absorb the Novak Djokovic mindset, which would have been perfect at Flushing Meadows in 2023. Imagine they were cheering Aryna rather than Coco [as Djokovic imagined ‘Novak’ when he played [Roger] Federer at Wimbledon in 2019).
That might have been a difficult one to pull off for someone who wears their heart on their sleeve. However, the idea was to try to look at things as if observing from off the court rather than on it.
Compared to the constant love-in with the Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz roadshow, Gauff and Sabalenka have both had their detractors in recent weeks.
The American received significant pushback on her claim that the country’s supporters are “the worst” for travelling abroad to support their tennis stars.
Sabalenka lost a Battle of the Sexes match against Nick Kyrgios, which never reached six feet under as a spectacle. It was like having two mates pretending to care about the outcome of a friendly.
Last year’s Melbourne runner-up has shown considerable vulnerability in recent times when the big prizes are up for grabs.
She also lost her second WTA Tour final to an inspired Elena Rybakina in November. If Amanda Anisimova hadn’t become so distracted with the lights of New York, the best player in the world could have been looking at three straight Slam final losses.
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Anisimova clearly had the game to unsettle her opponent, but her elite mentality at the business end of majors is still on shaky ground.
Sabalenka is a big favourite in Australia. Iga Swiatek’s form and aura are on the ropes, and Gauff is in the hardest section of the draw.
The world No 1 has reached 11 out of the last dozen Slam semis and ended up winning four of them. It could and should be better. To truly grab the great player tag, the Belarusian has to push through the difficult moments more, something that she did well in the US Open.
At the end of 2024, the Tigress wanted to dominate the tour “like Serena did”, stating in an interview with Arab News: “I always wanted to dominate the tour like Serena [Williams] did, like Iga was able to do for so long.
“It’s really inspiring … but I’m trying to focus on myself, on improving myself, to make sure that I have all of the tools to dominate the tour as they did.”
She’s not far off. The next step must be piling up the majors now.
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