NEW YORK (AP) — Before Aryna Sabalenka could again, she needed to understand why she lost two Grand Slam finals this year.
Why she couldn’t put away in January, then couldn’t finish off in June.
Sabalenka realized it was because she was allowing bad thoughts to undo her good tennis, and vowed while vacationing in Greece after Wimbledon that would no longer happen.
“I was in Mykonos, reading my book, enjoying the view and I was just thinking that why would I let my emotions take control over me in those two finals?” Sabalenka said. “It felt like I thought that, OK, if I made it to the final, it means that I’m going to win it, and I sort of didn’t expect players to come out there and to fight. I thought that everything’s going to go easily my way, which was completely the wrong mindset.”
She was much stronger in that area Saturday, when she beat 6-3, 7-6 (3) to become the first repeat champion at the U.S. Open since Serena Williams won three in a row from 2012-14.
Sabalenka mentioned a couple of moments, including on the way to getting broken while serving for the match with a 5-4 lead in the second set, where she could’ve had the types of lapses in focus that plagued her in the previous finals in 2025.
Those defeats were threatening to overshadow an otherwise stellar season for the 27-year-old from Belarus, who has held the No. 1 ranking throughout it and leads the WTA Tour with 56 wins. Had she failed to win the U.S. Open, she said before the tournament, Sabalenka still would have considered the year a success.
But she made clear Saturday night how much she wanted to avoid that.
“I knew that the hard work we put in, like, I deserved to have a Grand Slam title this season,” Sabalenka said.
She threw her racket in anger after the loss to Keys, which kept her from a third straight title at the Australian Open. Frustrated while losing to Gauff after winning the first set — just as she did in another major final, the 2023 U.S. Open — Sabalenka yelled at herself or stared up at her team with an exasperated look while making 70 unforced errors in Paris, later blaming the defeat more on her own mistakes than Gauff’s performance.
Sabalenka knew she had to handle the ups and downs within the match better against Anisimova, an American who had ousted her in the Wimbledon semifinals, had similar power in her strokes and would have the crowd in Arthur Ashe Stadium behind her.
“Going into this final, I decided for myself that I’m going to control my emotions. I’m not going to let them take control over me, and doesn’t matter what happens in the match,” Sabalenka said.
She has worked hard on the mental side of the sport. Sabalenka said she’s met for about five years with a psychologist, adding that it helped in the beginning. But eventually, the four-time Grand Slam champion determined, she was relying on her too much.
“I thought that, OK, she has to fix me, she has to give me an answer. So I wasn’t really taking the responsibility over my actions,” Sabalenka said. “I was making the same mistake over and over again, and I was getting upset that it’s not helping.
“At some point I decided, OK, I have to take responsibility and I have to figure it (out) by myself by thinking, analyzing and understanding myself better. I think it actually worked really well. I think that was the right move for me.”
Next up in the majors is a chance to regain the trophy she lost in Australia. Sabalenka knows she’ll have a great chance if she shows the maturity she did in New York.
“To bring the fight and be able to handle my emotions the way I did in this final, it means a lot,” Sabalenka said. “I’m super proud right now of myself.”
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