10 amazing things Aryna Sabalenka achieved at the Australian Open this year

She was the first woman to win a Grand Slam title without dropping a set in two years, among many other things.

Published Jan 30, 2024

HIGHLIGHTS: A. Sabalenka def. Q. Zheng; Australian Open FR

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Aryna Sabalenka was on top of her game from start to finish in Melbourne this year, not even dropping a set on the way to capturing her second straight Australian Open title.

The 25-year-old achieved a lot more than just lifting the trophy, though—here are just 10 of the other amazing things she did:

She’s now won her last 14 matches in a row at the Australian Open—and 28 of her last 29 sets, too. The only set she’s dropped in Melbourne the last two years was the first set of her 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory over Elena Rybakina in the final last year.

She’s now won 20 of her last 21 matches at hardcourt majors, and 22 of her last 23 matches in Australia. Since the start of last year, her only loss at a hardcourt major came to Coco Gauff in the US Open final, and her only loss in Australia came to Rybakina in this year’s Brisbane final, 6-0, 6-3 (a scoreline she clearly had no trouble bouncing back from in Melbourne).

She’s the first woman to win back-to-back Australian Open titles since Victoria Azarenka in 2012 in 2013. She’s also just the ninth woman in the Open Era to achieve the feat:

Margaret Court (1969-1971)
Evonne Goolagong (1974-1976)
Steffi Graf (1988-1990)
Monica Seles (1991-1993)
Martina Hingis (1997-1999)
Jennifer Capriati (2001-2002)
Serena Williams (2009-2010)
Victoria Azarenka (2012-2013)
Aryna Sabalenka (2023-2024)

Sabalenka's 6-0, 6-0 victory over Lesia Tsurenko in the third round was the first double bagel win of her career in a tour-level match.

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She’s the first woman to win a Grand Slam title without dropping a set in two years. The last woman to win a major without losing a set was Ashleigh Barty at the 2022 Australian Open.

She’s just the fifth woman since 2000 to win the Australian Open without losing a set. Lindsay Davenport (2000), Maria Sharapova (2008), Serena Williams (2017) and Barty (2022) also did it.

She’s just the third woman in the Open Era to win their first two Grand Slam titles at the same Grand Slam in back-to-back years. Martina Navratilova (Wimbledon in 1978 and 1979) and Azarenka (Australian Open in 2012 and 2013) also did that.

After going 16-14 in the first 14 Grand Slams she played, she’s now gone 50-8 in the last 10 she’s played. It may seem hard to believe now, but she didn’t reach a single quarterfinal in the first 14 majors she played between Wimbledon in 2017 and Roland Garros in 2021. But in her last 10, from Wimbledon in 2021 to now, she’s reached the semifinals or better eight times.

Sabalenka's victory over No. 4-ranked Coco Gauff in the semifinals was her first career win over a Top 4 player at a Grand Slam event.

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With her win over Barbora Krejcikova in the quarterfinals, she’s now 8-0 in her career in Grand Slam quarterfinals—just the second woman in the Open Era to win their first eight in a row after Chris Evert, who won her first 48 in a row. Sabalenka has also won all eight of her Grand Slam quarterfinals so far in straight sets—she's the only woman in the Open Era to do that.

She’s now reached the semifinals or better at the last six Grand Slams in a row. She’s the first woman to do that since Serena reached the semifinals or better at 10 Grand Slams in a row between the 2014 US Open and 2017 Australian Open.

And finally, she’s completely flipped the script on the double faults storyline from two years ago. At the Australian Open in 2022, she had a 2.8-to-1 ratio of double faults to aces—at this year’s event, she had a 2.7-to-1 ratio of aces to double faults:

2022 AO: 20 aces to 56 double faults [1 to 2.8 ratio]
2023 AO: 46 aces to 29 double faults [1.6 to 1 ratio]
2024 AO: 27 aces to 10 double faults [2.7 to 1 ratio]

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