Author: Barkha Roy
Aryna Sabalenka, currently world number 2, won a significant victory in the final of the Mutua Madrid Open on Saturday. She defeated world number one Iga Swiatek 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 in a match that lasted 2 hours and 26 minutes.
This victory marked Sabalenka’s third title of the year, including her win at the Australian Open earlier this year, the most of any player on the tour. She had already won the Madrid Open in 2021, and now has a total of 13 titles to her name.
The week before her trip to Madrid, Iga Swiatek had narrowly beaten Aryna Sabalenka in the final of the Stuttgart Open. This match was important because it was the first time in 23 years that the two best players had met in the final.
Sabalenka began the Madrid Open final with an impressive display, dominating the first set without allowing Swiatek a single break point. However, it was his ability to keep his composure at crucial moments that demonstrated his progress this year. Despite being known for wearing her emotions on her sleeve, Sabalenka combined her technical improvements on the serve with a new-found calmness and maturity under pressure.
In the final set, when Swiatek saved three match points in the last game, Sabalenka rose to the challenge and won one of the most significant victories of her career.
Meanwhile, the Russian men’s doubles pair of Karen Khachanov and Andrey Rublev won their first doubles title at tour level after defeating the Indian-Australian duo of Rohan Bopanna and Matthew Ebden, seeded seventh, 6-3, 3-6, 10-3 in a hard-fought encounter.
Khachanov and Rublev reached their third ATP Masters 1000 final, after reaching the championship match in Miami in 2018 and Paris in 2019. With the win, Rublev has already secured four doubles trophies, while this is Khachanov’s first doubles title on tour.
In addition, the Brazilian-Belarusian women’s duo Beatriz Haddad Maia and Victoria Azarenka, competing in their first doubles tournament, reached the final of the competition after defeating the American-Canadian pair Taylor Townsend and Leylah Annie Fernandez in a three-set match. The former beat the latter 6-4, 0-6 and 10-6 in an hour and 20 minutes.