She sealed the championship with her sixth ace of the final.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, the heart definitely was beating too fast, even if maybe my face did not show it,\u201d she told local broadcasters.<\/p>\n
\u201cInside was a lot of emotions.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was more disappointment in a major final for Sabalenka, who won the US Open last year for the second time but lost the French Open and Melbourne title deciders.<\/p>\n
She was into her fourth Australian Open final in a row and had been imperious until now.<\/p>\n
The 27-year-old top seed had tears in her eyes at the end and draped a towel over her head to hide her feelings.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s hope maybe next year will be a better year for me,\u201d Sabalenka said ruefully.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe played an incredible match and I tried my very best. I was fighting until the very last point.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the roof on because of drizzle in Melbourne, Rybakina immediately broke serve and then comfortably held for 2-0.<\/p>\n
Rybakina faced two break points at 4-3, but found her range with her serve to send down an ace and dig herself out of trouble, leaving Sabalenka visibly frustrated.<\/p>\n
Rybakina looked in the zone and wrapped up the set in 37 minutes on her first set point when Sabalenka fired long.<\/p>\n
Incredibly, it was the first set Sabalenka had dropped in 2026.<\/p>\n
The second game of the second set was tense, Rybakina saving three break points in a 10-minute arm-wrestle.<\/p>\n
They went with serve and the seventh game was another tussle, Sabalenka holding for 4-3 after the best rally of a cagey affair.<\/p>\n
The tension ratcheted up and the top seed quickly forged three set points at 5-4 on the Kazakh\u2019s serve, ruthlessly levelling the match at the first chance to force a deciding set.<\/p>\n
Sabalenka was now in the ascendancy and smacked a scorching backhand to break for a 2-0 lead, then holding for 3-0.<\/p>\n
Rybakina, who also had not dropped a set in reaching the final, looked unusually rattled.<\/p>\n
She reset to hold, then wrestled back the break, allowing herself the merest of smiles.<\/p>\n
At 3-3 the title threatened to swing either way.<\/p>\n
But a surging Rybakina won a fourth game in a row to break for 4-3, then held to put a thrilling victory within sight.<\/p>\n
Sabalenka came into the final as favourite but Rybakina has been one of the form players on the women\u2019s tour in recent months.<\/p>\n
She also defeated Sabalenka in the decider at the season-ending WTA Finals.<\/p>\n
Rybakina said her overriding emotions were relief, but also hope that she can carry her scintillating form into the rest of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt gives a lot of confidence for sure,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year I didn\u2019t start that well… now it\u2019s different.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I just hope that I can carry all this momentum and hopefully do a good job with the team and continue this way throughout the year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rybakina beat second seed Iga Swiatek in the quarterfinals and sixth seed Jessica Pegula in the last four in Melbourne.<\/p>\n
Rybakina switched to play under the Kazakh flag in 2018 when she was a little-known 19-year-old, citing financial reasons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"She sealed the championship with her sixth ace of the final. \u201cWell, the heart definitely was beating too…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2246,10801,1135,4498,57100,149944,3185,5904,10813,1364,78,26522,123,111,139,69,5493,1523,97784,149945,10802,1534,8466,10814,213,149946,199,37137,2563,61,377],"class_list":["post-261419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-2246","tag-aryna","tag-australian","tag-beat","tag-cool","tag-elena","tag-emotions","tag-final","tag-grand","tag-her","tag-in","tag-keeps","tag-melbourne","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-open","tag-over","tag-revenge","tag-rybakina","tag-sabalenka","tag-saturday","tag-second","tag-slam","tag-sports","tag-stifled","tag-take","tag-tense","tag-title","tag-to","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}