MELBOURNE, Feb 1 \u2014\u00a0Elena Rybakina beat the two top-ranked players in the world to win the Australian Open and show that her quiet ruthlessness can propel her to number one and more Grand Slam glory.<\/p>\n
The Moscow-born Kazakh emerged from a power battle with top seed Aryna Sabalenka to claim the Melbourne title in three tight sets yesterday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 26-year-old\u2019s 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 triumph brought her a second major crown, more than three years after winning Wimbledon.<\/p>\n
Two-time Australia champion Sabalenka had her chances, notably leading the final set 3-0, but the fifth seed retained her trademark cool to pull through.<\/p>\n
Rybakina later revealed that beneath her understated celebrations was huge relief.<\/p>\n
Proving it was no fluke, it was the second time in three months that big-serving Rybakina has beaten the world number one.<\/p>\n
She has been the form player on tour since the middle of last year and is set to return to her career-high ranking of three, behind Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek.<\/p>\n
Australian media labelled her a \u201cquiet assassin\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year I didn\u2019t start that well,\u201d said Rybakina, as she eyes a second Wimbledon title in June-July.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow it\u2019s different. So I just hope that I can carry all this momentum, hopefully do a good job with the team and continue this way throughout the year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rybakina\u2019s tense victory over Sabalenka, having beaten Poland\u2019s second seed Swiatek in straight sets in the quarter-finals, was her 20th win in her last 21 matches.<\/p>\n
Big goals<\/p>\n
Rybakina, who switched to play for Kazakhstan in 2018 because of financial reasons, was tipped for more Grand Slam success after her Wimbledon breakthrough in 2022.<\/p>\n
She reached the Australian Open final six months later, facing Sabalenka again.<\/p>\n
Rybakina won the first set but the powerful Belarusian struck back to win her first major title in three sets.<\/p>\n
There was a Wimbledon quarter-final and semi-final for Rybakina in 2023 and 2024, and she got to the last eight of the French Open.<\/p>\n
But her career was hampered by illness and injuries, particularly back trouble, and she has suffered insomnia.<\/p>\n
Speaking after beating Sabalenka, she said she was able to enjoy her Australian title more than the Wimbledon one.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember I was not sleeping well, semis, even quarters. Final I don\u2019t even… how many emotions and how many thoughts was going through my head,\u201d she said on Saturday, looking back to 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really stressful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Put to her that statistically she has been the best player in the world since Wimbledon in the middle of last year, Rybakina looked almost embarrassed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t even know these statistics, to be honest. The reason, I mean, I\u2019ve been playing well,\u201d she said, smiling.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a very aggressive style of game, so I think that\u2019s definitely the key.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know which other answer I can give you.\u201d<\/p>\n
She was similarly coy when asked if being number one for the first time was on her radar.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have big goals. Of course time will show, but definitely we will keep on working,\u201d she said. \u2014 AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MELBOURNE, Feb 1 \u2014\u00a0Elena Rybakina beat the two top-ranked players in the world to win the Australian Open…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[144664,139730,150910,150912,150911,123,111,139,69,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-263908","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-aryna-sabalenka","9":"tag-australian-open","10":"tag-elena-rybakina","11":"tag-grand-slam","12":"tag-iga-swiatek","13":"tag-melbourne","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nz","17":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263908","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=263908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}