For the second time in this short season, Aryna Sabalenka will face Elena Rybakina in the final of a tournament. The Belarusian lifted the winner trophy in Melbourne and leads their head-to-head 4:0, but the result of Sunday’s championship match at the BNP Paribas Open is no forgone conclusion.
Outside of their one-sided official results, the Moscow-born Kazakhstani player did win an encounter last year in the World Tennis League competition. With only three singles titles to her name and none from this year, the world No.10 was the first woman representing Kazakhstan to reach the last four at a WTA 1000 tournament and is now a finalist. The world No.2 Sabalenka, by contrast, has 12 career singles titles, two from this year.
Remarkably, the slow courts do not generally suit either player’s power-hitting style. Reigning Wimbledon champion Rybakina is pleased to see how well she can do here and it is changing her perspective on skills, telling the media, “It’s not my advantage, this surface, because it’s too slow. But I think that in the end it proves to me that I actually can play in such slow conditions. If physically I feel well and I’m healthy, it’s possible to play on any surface for me.”
The tenth-seeded Rybakina spent 9:02 hours on the gritty hard court en…
