Aryna Sabalenka, not afraid to keep failing until she succeeded, wins another Australian Open

Aryna Sabalenka won her second Grand Slam title with an almost-never-in-doubt 6-3, 6-2 victory over Zheng Qinwen at Melbourne Park on Saturday.

That’s great news for her, her team, her fans, and tennis in general. She’s an incendiary athlete who gives everything she has in her matches, and shows everything she’s feeling to her audience. Her no-filter expressiveness on court—the eye-rolls, the wry smiles, the death stares—is as must-see as her forehand.

Maybe more useful to us, though, was what the 25-year-old said after this win about how she got here.

“I think it’s all come with experience,” Sabalenka said. “There’s not going to be big wins without really tough losses.”

“There’s not going to be big wins without really tough losses.” Stick those words on your refrigerator, or your computer, or your tennis racquet. Coming from Sabalenka, the phrase isn’t just another mushy self-help bromide. She’s lived it. Her career, and especially the past 12 months, have been defined by it.

For years, Sabalenka’s volatility—her tendency to “go crazy,” as she puts it—had gotten the better of her on big stages. Her serve melted down, she gave away third-set leads, she let one missed opportunity turn into five more. When she won her first major title at last year’s Australian Open, she finally seemed to have tamed, or at least survived, her emotions. But they didn’t stay tamed for long. As Sabalenka found out, the pressure doesn’t go away just because you’ve won something.

“I actually felt after [the Australian Open] last year, it’s going to help me to be more free and [not] care about things, and blah, blah, blah,” she said. “But not really. You still feel the same.”

And you can still crumble the same way. At Roland Garros, Sabalenka lost in the semifinals to Karolina Muchova from 5-2 up in the third. At Wimbledon, she lost in the semifinals to Ons Jabeur, after being up a set and a break. At the US Open, she lost in the final to Coco Gauff after winning the first set. Each time, she looked to be the better player to start; each time, she ended up beating herself.

Yet what I noticed most when those matches were over was her smile. It looked genuine rather than feigned, and she didn’t seem to have any trouble mustering it even in the midst of calamity. To me, the smile said that she was thinking long term. That she understood, as hard as this moment was, that there would be many more majors and many more opportunities. That she still knew how good she was, and that time was on her side.

Yes, after her US Open loss, Sabalenka smashed her racquet and stuffed it in a trash can. But in her press conference that same night, she was quick to emphasize that she and her team were “still learning.” It seemed as if she had accepted the fact that she was prone to disaster at the majors, which meant all she could do was try her best to prevent the next one.

If disaster did strike, well, she knew now that it wasn’t the end of the world. The worst happened to her at Roland Garros, but she bounced back to make the semis at Wimbledon. The worst happened to her there, too, but she bounced back to go one round farther in New York. Now, in Melbourne, she’s gone one round farther than that.

“Of course I was very down after those matches,” Sabalenka said of 2023 defeats. “I was crying, I was smashing the racquet, as we see. I was really crazy.”

“But then, like, later on after day or two, we sit down with the team, thinking, OK, what do we have to do to fix it and to make sure this will never happen again.”

So it’s always a process, and as they say, you just to enjoy the process and trust the process and believe that next time you’ll do better.

The Sabalenka process bore fruit in Melbourne. She didn’t drop a set in seven matches. When the familiar nerves began to creep in against Gauff in the semifinals, she steeled herself against them and found her best tennis when she needed it. In the final, she showed how complete and tactically efficient her game has become. As Mary Joe Fernandez said in the ESPN booth, Sabalenka dictated against Zheng as much as with her smart court positioning as she did with her blistering shots. She hit fewer winners than her opponent (14 to Zheng’s 19), but you wouldn’t have known it from the way she controlled the middle of the court and rushed Zheng into misses.

“Compared to last year, it’s a completely different me,” Sabalenka said. “Compared to the US Open, once again, it’s a different me. I’m more controlled and kind of like don’t let the rest of the things come to my mind.”

Sabalenka was so controlled that, when she reached triple match point at 5-2 in the second set, the lack of drama or tension felt a little surreal. She calmly hit three unreturnable serves to reach 40-0.

But this was still Sabalenka we were talking about. At 40-0, she pulled a forehand wide. At 40-15, she sailed another forehand long. At 40-30, she played too conservatively and let Zheng feather in a drop shot winner. When the ball bounced twice, and she found herself back at deuce, the old Sabalenka suddenly appeared, and shot an angry, eye-bulging stare at her team.

This time, though, she didn’t let the missed opportunities snowball into something worse. This time, she kept swinging. She won the final point the same, highly efficient way she had won so many at this tournament, with a big serve and a winning forehand.

“I’m speechless right now,” Sabalenka said later. “I don’t know how to describe my emotions.”

She can take her time to find the words and savor the moment. Sabalenka has suffered some really tough losses, and probably will again. But this was the big win that makes the whole process all worthwhile.