Far from perfect, Sabalenka goes back to basics to win Brisbane title

Aryna Sabalenka may not have had it all her own way.

But when it counted, the two-time defending Australian Open champion fired up to beat a brave and battling performance from world number 107, Polina Kudermetova.

The 21-year-old qualifier was eventually overwhelmed 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 in 1 hour and 46 minutes.

But she made Sabalenka work, belying her lowly position and giving fair warning to the world number one that she will have to improve her game if she is to win a third Australian Open at Melbourne Park later this month.

“That was definitely a tricky match, really, really tricky, aggressive game,” Sabalenka said post-match.

In what was her first WTA final, Kudermetova showed plenty of spirit, fighting and combating the power coming her way to overcome early nerves and claim the first set.

The Russian, who will likely leap-frog sister Veronika when the world rankings are released on Monday, quickly understood that a WTA500 final was no place for the faint of heart.

Sabalenka is the sort of player who can latch onto a weakness and hammer it into oblivion — and it doesn’t even need to be that weak.

Kudermetova has shown throughout this magical run of hers, through qualifying to the final, that she is not afraid to return fire with fire.

But applying that fire against someone who in this analogy is both firefighter and pyromaniac is fraught with risk.

And the enormity of the occasion can’t have been lost on the 21-year-old — that was evident at the first moment of pressure she was under.

At the end of her second service game on Sabalenka’s advantage, the first break point she faced, she tightened up and sent both first and second serves long.

But even then she made her error a learning opportunity.

Her second two double faults came back-to-back at 40-30 up in her next service game, handing Sabalenka another break point.

But the Russian followed that up with an ace and served brilliantly to hold.

Then, she broke back, Sabalenka rattled enough to lose her shape as the beautifully composed and measured Russian returned fire with apparent ease from the baseline.

Sabalenka covered her face with her hand as she looked towards her impassive box.

A break is never a break until the subsequent hold, and there Kudermetova excelled — dishing out a beautifully disguised drop shot in the midst of some pounding baseline rallies.

That was where Kudermetova really started to excel.

She was matching Sabalenka from the baseline with flat, probing groundstrokes, but when she mixed it up she did so with masterful touch and class.

Sabalenka has been showing evidence of trying to expand her game all week, with varying levels of success.

“I have to be honest, it’s not working really well so far,” she said after her semifinal win.

“In this particular tournament, probably the surface is too fast.”

Kudermetova’s perfect touch made an ass of that idea — and Sabalenka’s tame slice into the net to give up her second break and the first set showed that maybe the big Belarusian should stick with the baseline bombs.

Sabalenka withdrew from a stunned Pat Rafter Arena at the end of that first set to recompose herself, and perhaps change tack.

This time last year, Sabalenka was dramatically blown away by Elena Rybakina 6-0, 6-3 in the final, nothing more than a blip before going on to win her second-straight Australian Open final a couple of weeks later.

Rybakina was fourth in the world then though, not a qualifier ranked outside the top 100.

Sabalenka, as she has at times throughout the tournament, though, didn’t look quite right.

The aura that accompanies such latent power was still there, but the errors offset it, wayward shots that came from ill-advised attempts to mix things up and move away from her baseline game.

“I was trying to play too conservative, I would say, I wasn’t following the plan,” Sabalenka said. 

“Everything clicked for her and she was, like, smashing the ball. Seems like everything is going in. I was like, I cannot do much in this situation. 

“In that second set, I just put her under a little pressure. I saw the way she was reacting, the way she was playing, she was rushing things a lot. 

“I was just going to stay aggressive, keep pushing, keep swinging the ball, and hopefully I’ll be able to turn around this game.”

In the second set, after saving a break point, she stood on her racquet strings and bopped up and down on them, handing a couple over to her team.

“I’d say half of the match I played with the tension I used to play the whole week [but] today just didn’t feel well, felt like the balls were flying not where they supposed to,” she said.

Psychologically if nothing else, it must have worked.

Sabalenka broke and then won the second set to level things up.

“Probably before I would get crazy. Now you can just only laugh on this situation,” she said.

What followed was the product of experience and ultimate power, Sabalenka going back to her baseline game and bludgeoning the young Russian off the court.

As the pressure told and the match slipped away from Kudermetova, Sabalenka broke twice to set up victory, swinging freely and, finally, finding the lines she was so desperate for earlier.

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Kudermetova also opened her shoulder to hit freely and even got one of those breaks back.

But Sabalenka could not be denied, blowing a kiss to the sky with a sigh of what almost looked like relief, finally having claimed the Evonne Goolagong Cawley trophy that eluded her last year.

Sabalenka has won 28 of her past 29 matches in Australia, her power game ideally suited to the fast courts Down Under — 16 of her now 18 Tour-level titles have come on hard courts, four of them in Australia from five attempts.

Sure, she will need to be better at the Australian Open if she is to become the first woman since Martina Hingis in 1999 to win three in a row.

But her winning record is undeniable.

“I definitely can take a lot of things from this week heading into the Australia Open,” Sabalenka said.

“I definitely feel my game pretty well, mentally, physically I’ll be ready to go at the Australia Open.

“Really happy with the way the week went, having this trophy going to the major, it’s really important.”

Winning is a habit that seems very difficult for Sabalenka to break, no matter how hard she and her opponents try.