Aryna Sabalenka says he could have been a bit \u2018more aggressive\u2019 with her serve whilst she was up a break in the deciding set during her loss against Elena Rybakina in the Australian Open final.<\/p>\n
The Belarusian was seeking her third Melbourne title in the last four years, after having fallen at the same stage to Madison Keys in 2025.<\/p>\n
However, it was Rybakina who prevailed 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 to collect her second major trophy and further close the head-to-head with Sabalenka<\/a> to 8-7 in the latter\u2019s favour.<\/p>\n The Kazakh got off to a flying start by breaking in a crucial opening game, with the world No 1 unable to break back.<\/p>\n However, after the slow start, Sabalenka held serve for 11 consecutive service games to go up 3-0 in the third.<\/p>\n That is where the good fortune would end as Rybakina stormed back to break her opponent in her two subsequent games, before serving it out on the first time of asking.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it was, like, really aggressive tennis overall the whole match, and I feel like in that moment she kind of like had nothing to lose, so she stepped in and she played incredible points,\u201d remarked Sabalenka during her post-match press conference.<\/p>\n \u201cShe was serving, so it was just one break. Probably I should \u2013 I mean, I don\u2019t know if I have any regrets.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe I should have tried to be more aggressive on my serve, knowing that I have a break and put pressure on her, but she played incredible.<\/p>\n \u201cShe made some winners. I made a couple of unforced errors. Of course, I have regrets.<\/p>\n \u201c You know, when you lead 3-Love, and then it felt like in a few seconds it was 3-4, and I was down with a break. So it was very fast.<\/p>\n \u201cGreat tennis from her. Maybe not so smart for me, but as I say, today I\u2019m a loser, maybe tomorrow I\u2019m a winner, maybe again a loser. Hopefully not. Let\u2019s see.\u201d<\/p>\n Australian Open: Awkward moment as Elena Rybakina\u2019s coach receives trophy and champion alludes to controversy<\/a><\/p>\n WTA Transylvania draw: Emma Raducanu to face world No 153 as she earns decent path<\/a><\/p>\n Despite Sabalenka\u2019s Grand Slam success, she has been on the losing end of three of her last four Grand Slam finals.<\/p>\n Last season, after her loss to Keys in Melbourne, she was defeated by Coco Gauff in a three-set battle at the French Open.<\/p>\n Nearly every statistic ended identically for Rybakina and Sabalenka, with the only material difference being the Belarusian\u2019s disappointing break point conversion of two out of her eight opportunities.<\/p>\n The two-time Grand Slam champion was only slightly ahead with three out of her eight.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, I feel like, yeah, overall it was much better than last year, two finals I lost,\u201d Sabalenka anaysed.<\/p>\n \u201cLevel-wise and decision that I was making and the way that the mentality was throughout the whole match that I was still there, I was ready to fight, I knew that she\u2019s not going to give it easily to me.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I think overall I made huge improvement on that, and I still lost it. But it\u2019s okay. I feel like I\u2019m moving towards the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n Sabalenka will next play at the WTA 1000 event in Doha from February8 \u2013 14, which she last won in 2020.<\/p>\n \u201cRight now I don\u2019t want to think about tennis, but my ambitions are still the same,\u201d Sabalenka said.<\/p>\n \u201cKeep fighting, keep working hard, keep putting myself out there, and try my best if I\u2019ll have another chance in the final.\u201d<\/p>\n Want more from Tennis365? Add us as\u00a0<\/span>a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/strong><\/p>\n The post Aryna Sabalenka reveals her one regret about Australian Open final loss to Elena Rybakina<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Aryna Sabalenka says he could have been a bit \u2018more aggressive\u2019 with her serve whilst she was up a break in the deciding set during her loss against Elena Rybakina in the Australian Open final. The Belarusian was seeking her third Melbourne title in the last four years, after having fallen at the same stage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1694\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Australian Open News<\/h2>\n