6-4 4-6 6-4<\/a> to Elena Rybakina on Saturday, the Russia-born Kazakh turning the tables on the Belarusian who beat her for the 2023 title.<\/p>\nRecommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n
\u201cI was really upset with myself, I would say, because once again I had opportunities,\u201d Sabalenka said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI played great until a certain point, and then I couldn\u2019t resist that aggression that she had on court.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the Keys shock left Sabalenka inconsolable and \u2060her racket in pieces, defeat to fifth seed Rybakina had its own unique sting.<\/p>\n
The world number one \u200bheld a 3-0 lead in the third set and had all the running before \u200dformer Wimbledon champion Rybakina broke back in the fifth game and stormed to her second Grand Slam trophy.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe made some winners. I made a couple of unforced errors,\u201d Sabalenka continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, I have regrets. You know, when \u200dyou lead 3-0 and \u2060then 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. We\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was Sabalenka\u2019s second significant loss to Rybakina in a few months, having been beaten for the season-ending WTA Finals crown.<\/p>\n
More alarmingly, it \u200bwas her third loss in her last four major finals, with Coco Gauff \u200cflooring her at last year\u2019s French Open.<\/p>\n
Sabalenka did not lose a set coming into the Melbourne final and had won 46 of her 48 previous matches at hardcourt Grand Slams.<\/p>\n
Now Rybakina, one of the few players able to match her \u200cfor power, has dealt Sabalenka\u2019s aura a heavy blow.<\/p>\n
Sabalenka laughed ruefully and shrugged through her post-match news conference but was honest enough to admit \u200cshe had been despondent outside the room.<\/p>\n
On court, she draped a \u2060white towel over her head to conceal her anguish before gathering herself to deliver gracious congratulations to Rybakina, her most frequent opponent on tour.<\/p>\n
She consoled herself that, barring a few errors in the final set, Rybakina had simply wrested the trophy from \u200cher grip with the quality of her tennis.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven in this final, I feel like I played great. I was fighting. I did my best, and today she was a better player,\u201d said Sabalenka.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I \u200ddon\u2019t know. We\u2019ll speak with the team. Now they try to avoid and escape me because they see that it\u2019s not really healthy to be around me right now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following back-to-back Australian Open wins, Aryna Sabalenka has now lost two consecutive finals with Elena Rybakina defeat. Published…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[5806,6109,2840,38128,49,48,3456,17517,44,457,82,593],"class_list":["post-445415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-asia","tag-asia-pacific","tag-australia","tag-belarus","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-europe","tag-kazakhstan","tag-news","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445415","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=445415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}