Aryna Sabalenka

Aryna Siarhiejeŭna Sabalenka (born 5 May 1998) is a Belarusian professional tennis player.

She is a former world No. 1 in both singles and doubles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA).

Sabalenka has won two major singles titles, at the 2023 and 2024 Australian Opens, and two major doubles titles at the 2019 US Open and the 2021 Australian Open, both partnering Elise Mertens.

She has won 20 career titles in total, 14 in singles and six in doubles.

Sabalenka began playing on the ITF Women's Circuit in 2012, even before she competed on the ITF Junior Circuit.

Her first five tournaments were in her hometown of Minsk and spread out over two years, but she did not win a main draw match in any of them.

She did not compete in the main draw of any ITF events until 2013 at the low-level Grade-4 Tallink Cup in Estonia at the age of 15.

She ultimately never played in the junior Grand Slam tournaments, or any other high-level Grade-A and Grade-1 events.

Without the higher point levels from these bigger tournaments, she had a career-high ranking of just No. 225.

Sabalenka won her first ITF title in doubles at the lowest-level Grade-5 Alatan Tour Cup in Belarus in late 2013 with compatriot Vera Lapko as her partner.

She began training at the National Tennis Academy in Minsk when it opened in 2014.

In 2014, she excelled at Grade 4 events.

She reached her first singles final at the Estonian Junior Open in June and won her first singles title at the MTV Total Junior Cup in Finland in October.

At the end of the season, Sabalenka defended her Alatan Tour Cup doubles title, this time with compatriot Nika Shytkouskaya, and also won the singles title.

She won her first professional match at the very end of 2014 in Istanbul.

The following season in October, she won her first two titles in back-to-back weeks in Antalya, both at the $10k level.

Sabalenka also won a $25k title the last week of the year.

In 2015, the Belarusian Tennis Federation persuaded Sabalenka and her team to focus on playing low-level professional events instead of junior tournaments, even though she was still eligible to compete at the junior level at the time.

Sabalenka had a late start on the ITF Junior Circuit, instead competing on the U14 and U16 Tennis Europe tours at a younger age.

She only played in one tournament in 2015, the European Junior Championships.

As a Grade B1 event, this was the highest level junior tournament she played in.

She lost in the second round to top seed Markéta Vondroušová.

This title put her into the top 300 of the WTA rankings for the first time at the start of 2016.

That year, she made her Fed Cup debut in April, losing her only match.

She also won her two biggest titles to date at the $50k level.

The first in Tianjin put her into the top 200 in May and the second in Toyota in November helped her finish the year ranked at No. 137 in the world.

Sabalenka was relatively unknown until 2017, when she led the Belarus Fed Cup team to a runner-up finish with Aliaksandra Sasnovich, despite both of them being ranked outside the top 75 at the time.

She finished both 2018 and 2019 ranked No. 11 in the world in singles.

Following two major singles semifinal appearances in 2021, Sabalenka peaked at the world No. 2 ranking, but struggled to consistently maintain that success in 2022.

In 2023, she won her first major singles title at the Australian Open, reached the semifinals at all four major tournaments (also finishing runner-up at the US Open), and obtained the world No. 1 ranking, being named the ITF World Champion for the season.

Sabalenka also began playing doubles regularly in 2019.

With Mertens as her partner, she completed the Sunshine Double by winning the two Premier Mandatory tournaments in March, the Indian Wells Open and the Miami Open.

After the US Open doubles title later in the year, she also qualified for the WTA Finals for the first time.

With the 2021 Australian Open doubles title, she became the world No. 1 in the discipline.

Sabalenka has a very aggressive style of play, often accumulating high numbers of winners and unforced errors.

With her height, she also has a very powerful serve.

Sabalenka was born in Minsk, the capital of Belarus.

Her father Sergey (d. 2019) was an ice hockey player.

Sabalenka started playing tennis by chance.

She said, "One day, my dad was just driving me somewhere in the car, and on the way he saw tennis courts. So he took me to the courts. I really liked it and enjoyed it and that's how it was. That's how it started."