{"id":125581,"date":"2025-09-07T02:13:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T02:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/125581\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T02:13:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T02:13:08","slug":"tennis-tiger-sabalenka-turns-a-corner-in-new-york-after-grand-slam-final-letdowns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/125581\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennis-&#8216;Tiger&#8217; Sabalenka turns a corner in New York after Grand Slam final letdowns"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p> By Janina Nuno Rios <\/p>\n<p>     <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/tennis2_1752144549434_1752144572333.jpg\" alt=\"Tennis-'Tiger' Sabalenka turns a corner in New York after Grand Slam final letdowns\" title=\"Tennis-'Tiger' Sabalenka turns a corner in New York after Grand Slam final letdowns\"\/>   Tennis-&#8216;Tiger&#8217; Sabalenka turns a corner in New York after Grand Slam final letdowns    <\/p>\n<p> NEW YORK, Sept 6 &#8211; U.S. Open champion Aryna Sabalenka may be nicknamed &#8220;The Tiger&#8221;, but her New York triumph on Saturday was less about raw aggression and more poise, as the world number one steadied herself and regrouped in key moments to claim a fourth Grand Slam title. <\/p>\n<p> Determined to become the first woman since American great Serena Williams to defend her crown at Flushing Meadows, the Belarusian carried the weight of recent major setbacks to claim a 6-3 7-6 win over Amanda Anisimova in the final and retain her crown. <\/p>\n<p> After final defeats at Melbourne and Paris, and a Wimbledon semi-final setback against Anisimova, Sabalenka turned all that disappointment into fuel, earning the right to show up to her press conference in party mode, goggles perched on her head and a bottle of champagne in hand. <\/p>\n<p> &#8220;After the Australian Open I thought that the right way would be just to forget it and move on, but then the same thing happened at the French Open. So I figured that, okay, maybe it&#8217;s time for me to sit back and to look at those finals and to maybe learn something,&#8221; an ecstatic Sabalenka told reporters. <\/p>\n<p> &#8220;Going into this final I decided for myself that I&#8217;m going to control my emotions. I&#8217;m not going to let them take control over me, and doesn&#8217;t matter what happens in the match. <\/p>\n<p> &#8220;My mindset was just going out there, fight for every point. Doesn&#8217;t matter of the situation. Just focus on myself and focus on things that I have to do to win the match.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p> The occasion seemed ripe for Sabalenka to crumble under the roar of a partisan Arthur Ashe crowd cheering her American opponent, but the 27-year-old showed that she was equipped to prevail in the toughest moments. <\/p>\n<p> Sabalenka was serving for the match when she gifted Anisimova a break with a flubbed smash in what seemed a pivotal momentum shift. Yet the top seed did not miss when it mattered the most, winning a record 19th straight tiebreak. <\/p>\n<p> &#8220;There were moments where I was really close to losing control, but I told myself, &#8216;No, it&#8217;s not going to happen. It&#8217;s absolutely okay&#8217;,&#8221; Sabalenka said. <\/p>\n<p> &#8220;I was really close to losing it, because you cannot make these kinds of mistakes on important points. Sometimes it can be crucial, from my experience. <\/p>\n<p> &#8220;But then I turn around and I took a deep breath in, and I was, like, okay, it happens. It&#8217;s in the past. Let&#8217;s focus on the next one.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p> Sabalenka added that her milestone 100th Grand Slam match win carried extra weight because of the road it took to get there. <\/p>\n<p> &#8220;You know, this one felt like I had to overcome a lot of things to get this one,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I knew that the hard work we put in, like, I deserved to have a Grand Slam title this season. <\/p>\n<p> &#8220;It means a lot to defend this title and to bring such great tennis on the court. To bring the fight and be able to handle my emotions the way I did in this final, it means a lot. I\u2019m super proud right now of myself.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Janina Nuno Rios Tennis-&#8216;Tiger&#8217; Sabalenka turns a corner in New York after Grand Slam final letdowns NEW&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[5531,69182,6005,49,48,27715,82,593,69181],"class_list":{"0":"post-125581","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-amanda-anisimova","9":"tag-arthur-ashe-crowd","10":"tag-aryna-sabalenka","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-grand-slam-title","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-tennis","16":"tag-u-s-open-champion"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}