Aryna Sabalenka’s last order of business in Riyadh, before she officially wrapped up her 2024 season and hopped on a plane to go on vacation, was a photoshoot with the trophy for being world No. 1.
The Belarusian fell to Coco Gauff at the semi-final stage of the WTA Finals last week but still left Saudi Arabia with some valuable silverware, having achieved one of her biggest goals: finishing the year at the summit of the rankings.
Sabalenka occupied the top spot for eight weeks last year but could not hold off Iga Swiatek, who reclaimed the No. 1 position in the closing week of the season to finish 2023 at the top.
This time, Sabalenka managed to cap an incredible campaign. during which she won two Grand Slams, the Australian Open and US Open, and two WTA 1000 crowns in Cincinnati and Wuhan, by clinching the year-end No. 1 ranking and the trophy that goes with it.
“I’m proud of myself this season. I think I achieved a lot,” Sabalenka said after her last match in Riyadh. “There is no room for disappointment.”
As she begins her second stint as world No. 1, she believes she is “mentally, more ready” for her position at the top of the rankings. Her coach, Anton Dubrov, agrees.
“I don’t think you can hold the No. 1 ranking, to be honest, but I think she’s more mature, to understand what you need to do to be on this level,” Dubrov told Arab News in Riyadh last week.
“Because to hold it, you cannot hold it. The only thing you can do is your next match. And this is the thing: because you’re No. 1, everyone plays against you like they have nothing to lose. They can play the best game they can do. And you, with all the stress and all this level, you always have to be consistent, or even higher, all the time.
“I think, for her it’s about finding the way to adapt to all the situations. She is much better at doing that right now. She understands, even if she’s not at her best level. I think that’s what happened in China; she wasn’t playing her best tennis, it’s end of the season, she’s tired. But she adapted to the situation and accepted that she can even play not the best game and still find the way.”
Dubrov saw Sabalenka play for the first time when she was 14 years old, at a European team championship in Minsk.
“I think my grandpa was a captain of the team,” Dubrov recalls. A year later, he started to see her more often because she was training at the national academy, and they went on their first trip abroad, for International Tennis Federation tournaments in China, when she was about 16.
“I think it’s more than 10 years we have known each other,” he said.
Did he expect her to have such a great career when he first met her as a teenager?
“Firstly, what everyone would tell you is that you can hear that she’s hitting really hard,” he said. “She’s trying really hard. You never see her like, not trying. No matter how she is playing — she can play incredible, she can play not great — but she still will fight for it.
“And I wasn’t the guy who was like, ‘OK, she will be, like, No. 1 or, like, top 100.’ No, I wasn’t like this.
“When she was 16, I could see the biggest improvement because of her approach to herself. If someone will tell her that she needs to do something, and she agrees, she’s the one who the very next day will do it, and she will do it not just in the practice, she will do it actually when she’s going to play points.
“Most of the players, they still go into old habits more often. I would say she’s doing it less. If she agrees with you, she accepts it, even if it’s a new technique. And this is the worst one for tennis players because it’s really sensitive how you are used to doing something with a specific technique. So I think this is her talent, that if she accepts the thing, she’s doing it straight away.”
Dubrov said that to this day, Sabalenka remains very open to making changes as long as she has been convinced and shown evidence that such tweaks will make her game better.
“You need to show her why and then, definitely, she will do it,” he added.
Having previously worked with Sabalenka as a hitting partner, Dubrov was hired to be her coach in 2020. It has been a successful four-year partnership so far, during which she has claimed three majors and reached the top of the rankings twice.
“Thinking about a tennis coach, always I was looking for not, like, big names because sometimes big names are just big names,” Sabalenka said, reflecting on her decision to work with Dubrov.
“I was looking for someone smart and someone who will always be looking for something, and who's going to always search for stuff, who’s open to talk to whoever, you know, who is ready to receive any sort of advice.
“And of course, knowing my emotions, I was looking for someone who can understand that even if I go crazy on court, it’s nothing personal. It’s just like the way I am, throwing out all that negative stuff in my head so I can keep focusing on the game.”
Dubrov is on exactly the same page, which perhaps explains why they have enjoyed so much success together. He says irrespective of how well they get along, the most important thing is that he can help her improve her game; everything else is secondary to that.
“We had this conversation a lot during the 2022 season, when she served a lot of double faults. So we found Gavin (MacMillan, a biomechanics coach) to help us,” said Dubrov.
“We always need to find a way to improve, otherwise why are we doing something together? So if we are still working together, doing something, first it should be about your tennis. OK, it’s great, it’s a safe environment, that’s awesome. But the main thing is your tennis.
“So if we can cover this part and we still see progression, great, we can still keep working. If not, we need to talk, need to find a new approach, need to find something. You need to find maybe some other guy to join, to replace or something.
“Because your career, we have to think really quick, because it’s changing really quick and with tennis, you have to prove every week that you’re No. 1.”
Dubrov notes that the biggest improvement Sabalenka made to get back to the top of the rankings was her ability to focus on “how to do it, not thinking about just the outcome.” Coming to an understanding that the “how” is directly within her control while the outcome is not has worked wonders for the 26-year-old, and now she and Dubrov are looking forward to 2025 with that mindset.
This year, Sabalenka lost in the quarter-finals of the French Open while dealing with a stomach bug that hampered her progress, and she missed Wimbledon with a shoulder injury.
She told Arab News recently that she has every reason to believe she can translate her success in hard-court Grand Slams to the clay of Roland Garros and the grass of Wimbledon.
“I think this is, for us, the biggest challenge as a team: to manage that, with preparation mostly,” said Dubrov. “Because it’s a really tight time between Roland Garros and Wimbledon, and they are different surfaces. So I think this is more about how we can manage the calendar, preparation and her adaptation to different things.
“But she’s doing that much better. And yes, she has those chances on all the surfaces. But we need to focus on what we have to do for this and start with the managing before the tournament. Then we have the chances.”
