Even in defeat, Aryna Sabalenka leaves Riyadh as the year’s benchmark

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- Aryna Sabalenka, sitting on her changeover chair, stared straight ahead, eyes wide open but not really seeing workers scurry to set up the trophy presentation.

In the aftermath of a jarringly abrupt 6-3, 7-6 (0) defeat in the season’s last match, Sabalenka appeared stunned. The World No. 1 is accustomed to obliterating opponents in these high-leverage situations -- but Saturday night in the WTA Finals championship match it didn’t happen.

Elena Rybakina, serving 13 aces and saving all five break points against her, was simply better. One hour later, Sabalenka seemed to have recovered.

“Yeah,” she told reporters, “after a little time, I feel actually great. I lost this match. She played incredible. I feel like I did my best today. It didn’t work. But I leave this tournament being proud of myself and the things that we’ve been able to achieve.”

Indeed, Sabalenka finishes the year with most match-wins (63), the most ranking points (10,870) and the most prize money ever in women’s tennis -- $15,008,519.

Sabalenka has admitted that a flood of emotions were the reason she lost in the finals of the Australian Open (to Madison Keys) and Roland Garros (to Coco Gauff). Ironically, she may have gone in the opposite direction this time.

“I was maybe a little bit emotional today,” Sabalenka explained, “but it didn’t really affect my game. I was just maybe overthinking today, maybe too much.

When things started to go south in her three previous matches here, Sabalenka refused to give in. She pulled out a three-set win against Jessica Pegula, forced a successful tiebreak over Gauff and was the first to beat Amanda Anisimova in a three-setter in 14 matches.

Sabalenka has won two Australian Open crowns, to go with a pair of titles at the US Open. This is the second time in four years that she reached the final at the year-end championship and fallen short. It happened three years ago in Fort Worth, when Caroline Garcia played a perfectly clean match.

Not unlike the effort of Rybakina.

No one has been more successful in the Open Era when it comes to tiebreaks; Sabalenka won 22 of them this year, a single-season record. And yet, Rybakina made some history herself -- Sabalenka was shut out in a tiebreak for the first time in her career.

Sabalenka went wire-to-wire at the World No. 1 this year. She finishes the season with nearly 2,500 more points than No. 2 Iga Swiatek.

At 27, she’s wise enough to know she still had the best season among all Hologic WTA players.

“Sometimes players are better on the day than you,” Sabalenka said. “And how to recover after such a tough loss? I mean, the good thing is that I’m always there. The bad thing this season, I lost most of the biggest finals I made.

“So I guess I’ll just sit back in Maldives having my probably tequila and think back and try to analyze my maybe behavior, my emotions and think that actually it’s been pretty good so far. I just need to get little bit better with myself a little bit more, and hopefully next season I’ll improve.”

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