The Albany Gazette - Aryna Sabalenka: the complete player in search of history

The 26-year-old Belarusian is a commanding presence on court, a far cry from the talented but mentally fragile player of her younger days.

A second Melbourne title last year, married to a first US Open crown, established her as the dominant force in the women's game.

She deposed five-time Slam champion Iga Swiatek at the top of the rankings and consolidated it this week by reaching another major final, the fifth of her career.

Already the first woman to mount a successful title defence at Melbourne Park since compatriot Victoria Azarenka in 2013, she can etch her name among the greats by making it a hat-trick when she faces Madison Keys in Saturday's final.

She is the first woman to reach three consecutive Australian Open finals since Serena Williams in 2017 and the youngest to do so since Martina Hingis in 2002.

She is also just the third player in the past decade to notch a 20-match win streak at a single Grand Slam and if she wins again on Saturday will become the first woman since Hingis in 1999 to win the Australian Open three years in a row.

That would add her name to a select group of tennis greats who have completed the Melbourne three-peat.

The others are Margaret Court, Evonne Goolagong, Steffi Graf and Monica Seles.

Even Williams, who won seven Australian Opens, could not manage three in a row.

"That's crazy that I was able to put myself in the situation where I have a chance to put my name next to the legends," said Sabalenka, who now has 18 WTA titles to her name.

"I mean, I couldn't even dream about that. It's going to mean a lot for me."

- 'Go for it' -

Her breakthrough Slam came at Melbourne in 2023, which she followed up by making the semi-finals in Paris and at Wimbledon, before reaching the final of the US Open that year. She then lifted two more majors last year.

But just three years ago at the Australian Open, Sabalenka's serve had been in pieces and she was having to scrape through fraught battles as her fragile emotions were laid painfully bare.

Her dramatic change was a reward for hard work with her coaches and a sports psychologist, which has given her a zen-like peace while she has lost none of her fierce competitive instinct.

The belief in that strategy allows Sabalenka to dig herself out of sticky situations, not that she has faced many over the past two weeks, where she has dropped only one set, and never been behind in any match.

The freedom she now feels after banishing the mental demons has given her more than one way to win, and that is dangerous for her rivals.

"Of course I have tactics. But I follow my instincts most of the time, so it's kind of like a balance.

"Whenever I don't feel that my instincts are working, I get back to the tactics.

"Whenever I feel like now it's time to trust myself more, I go for it."

(W.Walker--TAG)