{"id":282633,"date":"2025-11-10T05:06:18","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T05:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/282633\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T05:06:18","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T05:06:18","slug":"elena-rybakina-beats-no-1-aryna-sabalenka-to-win-wta-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/282633\/","title":{"rendered":"Elena Rybakina beats No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka to win WTA Finals"},"content":{"rendered":"

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Elena Rybakina<\/a> won the WTA Finals after beating No. 1-ranked Aryna Sabalenka<\/a> 6-3, 7-6 (0) on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The sixth-ranked Rybakina struck eight aces and converted the sole break of the match on the indoor hard court in Riyadh.<\/p>\n

“It’s been an incredible week. I honestly didn’t expect any result, and to go so far is just incredible,” Rybakina said about a title run that included wins over No. 2-seeded Iga Swiatek<\/a>, Amanda Anisimova<\/a> and Jessica Pegula<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It was a second loss in the final of the season-ending tournament for Sabalenka after the four-time Grand Slam winner lost to Caroline Garcia<\/a> in the 2022 title match.<\/p>\n

Rybakina, the 2022 Wimbledon champion from Kazakhstan, was playing her first title match in her third consecutive WTA Finals appearance.<\/p>\n

She collected $5.23 million after going 5-0 at the event featuring the top eight women. The WTA said that was the largest payout in the history of women’s sports. Sabalenka, who entered the match with an 8-5 head-to-head edge over her opponent, earned $2.7 million as runner-up.<\/p>\n

Rybakina broke for a 4-2 lead in the first set, and Sabalenka saved four break points in the second to force the tiebreaker. The Belarusian entered the match with a 22-2 record in tiebreakers this year but was shut out in this one, hitting a backhand return long on match point.<\/p>\n

Rybakina, 26, recorded her tour-best 45th hard-court win of the season. She became the 10th straight first-time winner of the WTA Finals and will finish the year at a career-high No. 5 after a 58-19 record that included three titles.<\/p>\n

Sabalenka will finish ranked No. 1 for a second straight season. This year, she won four titles, including the US Open, and had 63 match wins. She also reached the finals of the French Open and Australian Open.<\/p>\n

“She played incredible,” Sabalenka said about Rybakina. “I feel like I did my best today. It didn’t work, but I think so many things I have to be proud of. And yeah, I’m leaving this tournament without any disappointment.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Elena Rybakina won the WTA Finals after beating No. 1-ranked Aryna Sabalenka 6-3, 7-6…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-282633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}