In the women’s final at the Australian Open 26-year-old Jelena Rybakina secured the title for the first time. The world number five from Kazakhstan surprisingly won 6:4, 4:6, 6:4 against the top favorite Aryna Sabalenka from Belarus in the new edition of the 2023 final.
With this victory, she celebrated her second Grand Slam title after her triumph at Wimbledon 2022 and took revenge for the lost final against Sabalenka at Yarra River in 2023. The Belarusian, however, still has to wait for her fifth Grand Slam title and missed her third title at the Australian Open. The winner of 2023 and 2024 also failed in the final last year to Madison Keys (USA).
Rybakina won the first set
Sabalenka and Rybakina had dominated the tournament until the final. Neither player had given up a set on the way to the final. Even before the game, Sabalenka said full of confidence: “My job is not done yet.” But in the final the favorites spent a long time looking for their rhythm. Rybakina immediately took her serve and finished the first set with impressive calm. After 37 minutes, Rybakina took the first set.
Sabalenka made an unusually large number of mistakes and the 27-year-old increasingly began to struggle. She had big problems, especially with her second serve, and Rybakina got a lot of easy points here. Nevertheless, after the second set it was 1:1.
Sabalenka now had the momentum on her side. The four-time Grand Slam tournament winner quickly moved away to 3-0 in the deciding set, but then Rybakina fought back again. The 26-year-old played five games in a row and served with a score of 5:4 to win the match.
On Sunday the men will fight for the title
Rybakina had already won the last duel between the two: at the WTA Finals in the United Arab Emirates at the beginning of November, the Kazakh won the final and secured record prize money of around 4.42 million euros.
On Sunday, world number one Carlos Alcaraz from Spain and record Grand Slam champion Novak Đoković from Serbia will fight for the men’s title. Alcaraz defeated Alexander Zverev in the semifinals over 5:27 hours. Đoković also defeated defending champion Jannik Sinner from Italy in five sets.
