Stoic warrior Elena Rybakina fells Aryna Sabalenka to win Australian Open

MELBOURNE – At the end, after she’d smacked forehands, taken risks, held her nerve, forged a comeback, made her history, felled the world No. 1, all Elena Rybakina allowed herself was a small fist and a shy smile. It was just fine, for on Rod Laver Arena her big game had spoken belligerently, bravely and eloquently all evening.

In a performance of composure and captivating power, the 26-year-old Kazakh held off the fancied Aryna Sabalenka 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 in 2hr 18min to win the Australian Open and her second Grand Slam title.

A while later, after celebrations and TV interviews, the champion arrived for her press conference. Occasionally a gentleman in gloves carries the trophy, but she held it tightly in her own two hands. She had won it and was not letting it go. “It was really tough battle,” she said. “Yeah, I didn’t expect to turn it around.”

Earlier Sabalenka, who has a 4-4 win-loss record now in Grand Slam finals, was graceful and generous of her rival’s “aggressive” tennis. “She played an incredible match,” she said. The Belarusian won only two of eight break points, Rybakina three of six, and she shrugged: “I had my opportunities. It feels like I missed a couple, but it’s tennis. Today you’re a loser, tomorrow you’re a winner.”

Rybakina is strikingly un-famous for someone so gifted. Her smooth, easy power was obvious when she won Wimbledon in 2022, but her expression of her talent has since been uneven. After she lost the Australian Open final in 2023 to Sabalenka, she had two relatively quiet years, making news more because of her coach, Stefano Vukov, who was suspended for a breach of the WTA Code of Conduct. Now she has won 14 of her last 15 matches and he won the award for best coach at the Open.

In a turbulent final, Rybakina’s calm was eventually her weapon. Stoic zen warrior outplayed gifted, tough diva. But it came only after an astonishing turnaround. From 4-4 in the second set to 0-3 in the third set, Rybakina won only seven of 28 points. When told of that stat, she laughed: “Wow, that’s not good.”

The final was hanging by a thread when she stitched together a remarkable comeback of five straight games to go from 0-3 to 5-3. In the 2023 final which she lost, Rybakina remembered that Sabalenka had gone for her shots. This time, the Kazakh had decided, “if I get a chance to lead I will need to try some risky shots and just go for it”. She went, and she won.

On court, with the roof closed, a light show was held, the trophy was removed from its Louis Vuitton trunk, an anthem-singing choir arrived and boxing-style introductions were done. Once the festivities ended, the ferocity began. Outside hung rain clouds, inside a hailstorm of shots was let loose.

In barely three minutes, the match took a dramatic turn. First, Sabalenka fired an ace to announce herself on the second point. Then Rybakina hit two return winners so blistering that Sabalenka was left looking helplessly at her coaching box. Quickly the Belarusian was broken. It was a momentum Rybakina would not relinquish till the end of the second set.

The contest wasn’t thrilling as much as it was intense. Rybakina is 184cm, two centimetres taller than Sabalenka, and the only one who can match her for velocity. She hits without a sound and owns a serve which in the early part was a little like her competitive face. Unreadable.

Tennis is played at a distance, yet it felt like toe-to-toe. Big serves were followed by bigger forehands and to hit a line when everything is on the line takes nerve. Neither was in the mood for long conversations, for in a match of 184 points only eight rallies went beyond nine shots and 136 were between zero to four shots.

Late in the second set, a fan shouted, “Come on Aryna this is your arena”. Perhaps the No. 1 remembered who she was, for she broke Rybakina, took that set, led comfortably in the third with a break and then fell apart.

“She did a better job in handling that pressure moment,” the Belarusian conceded. Now this great player, who also lost tense three-setters in 2025 to Madison Keys at this Open, Coco Gauff at Roland Garros and Amanda Anisimova at Wimbledon, must decipher where she is letting trophies slip.

Rybakina, who was born in Moscow but represents Kazakhstan, now trails Sabalenka only 7-8 in head-to-head meetings and women’s tennis will be beseeching every tennis god that this turns into a heated rivalry. Both their games are violent (Rybakina’s fastest serve is 193kmh against Sabalenka’s best of 190kmh in Melbourne), their matches unpredictable, their personalities distinct.

In the press conference room, her grin wider, Rybakina was the very portrait of the unassuming champion. She wore a simple visor during play and was unadorned by jewellery, and yet now beside her sat the shining Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup. Trophies, she knows, are the most exclusive bling.