Aryna Sabalenka: "I'll sit back in the Maldives with my tequila and try to analyze ... my emotions"

Aryna Sabalenka famously shot from the hip in the press room after tense three-set losses in the finals of the Australian Open and at Roland Garros this year, saying that her emotions got the better of her and prevented her from finding her best tennis in the clutch moments.

But another high-profile loss—a 6-4, 7-6(0) defeated to Elena Rybakina on Saturday—for the title at the year-end WTA Finals saw the world No. 1 singing a different tune, crediting the 2022 Wimbledon champion for outplaying her when it mattered.

🖥️📲REPLAY: Elena Rybakina def. Aryna Sabalenka, 2025 WTA Finals F

"After a little time, I feel actually great," she told reporters after the match. "I lost this match. She played incredible. I feel like I did my best today. It didn’t work. But I leave this tournament being proud of myself and the things that we’ve been able to achieve.”

"I guess by doing this mistake over and over again, next time I show up in the big matches I'm in a better control," she continued. "But yeah, I was maybe a little bit emotional today, but it didn't really aIect my game. I was just maybe overthinking today, maybe too much. So, I think it wasn't like I lost complete control over my emotions and I lost the match. No, I think she played incredible. I didn't use a couple opportunities I had. And, yeah, basically, that's it."

While wanting it too much may not have contributed to the last of Sabalenka's high-profile defeats this season, she still couldn't hold it all in. The tears flowed as the WTA's consensus top-ranked player told her team that they had "so many things to be proud of" this season, leading the four-time Grand Slam champion to joke that an impending offseason vacation in the Maldives was the time to recalibrate mentally in more ways than one.

Q: Aryna, congratulations. regardless. That was a tough season. How do you mentally regroup after such a tough loss? And what do you think was the key moment where you thought, 'OK, this is not my game today.'

ARYNA SABALENKA: Well, you never think like that on the court. Every match you play, sometimes things are not going your way, and you still have your hopes that, OK, maybe I'll find my game. And you just keep digging, keep trying, keep fighting and most of the times you're able to turn around things. But sometimes players are better on the day than you.

And how to recover after such a tough loss? I mean, the good thing is that I'm always there. The bad thing this season, I lost most of the biggest finals I made. So, I guess I'll just sit back in Maldives having my probably tequila, and think back and try to analyze my maybe behavior, my emotions and think that actually it's been pretty good so far. I just need to get little bit better with myself a little bit more, and hopefully next season I'll improve.

Though she only won one of the sport's five biggest prizes this season, Sabalenka nonetheless finished the year with most match wins (63), the most ranking points (10,870) and a single-season record for prize money won with $15,008,519.

"This is sport. You cannot win everything," she said, "and I feel like with some tough losses, you're getting much better as the player and the person. This is how you grow."