On January 7, Aryna Sabalenka jokingly expressed her gratitude to Elena Rybakina for sparing a few points for her in their Brisbane International final.
Rybakina halted Sabalenka’s 15-match winning streak with a 6-0, 6-3 victory, securing her sixth career triumph. Rybakina was playing some quite deadly tennis. Sabalenka sarcastically attributed her team’s poor performance against Rybakina to their previous encounter and then humorously complimented her opponent for allowing her to win a few points.
During the trophy presentation after the game, Sabalenka made a humorous claim of her coaching team’s fault for the loss.
Sabalenka said laughing: “Couple of words to my team. You did a bad job today. Wow. 6-0, 6-3. That’s all your fault guys.”
She congratulated Rybakina for the win and said: “Well, honestly I don’t know where to start. First of all, Elena wow. Thank you for those 3 games at least. We made it look like a fight. Great job, congrats to you and your team on an amazing week. And see you in Melbourne.”
Aryna Sabalenka in 2024
Now ranked no.2, Sabalenka played her last contest on the 7th of January when she lost to world no.4 Elena Rybakina 6-0 6-3 in the final in Brisbane (draw).
This season Aryna has managed to achieve an overall 4-1 match record. Aryna Sabalenka’s latest run in Brisbane was the best achievement of her season.