INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — Aryna Sabalenka’s credentials as the best women’s tennis player in the world are unassailable. Monday will mark the beginning of her 82nd week as world No. 1, a milestone only 10 other players have reached since the WTA rankings were introduced in 1975. She has the big hardware that matters, with four Grand Slam trophies. She tends the daily responsibilities of the job, regularly beating the players who sit a tier beneath her, with workmanlike resolve. At 27, after all she has accomplished, she is still adding texture to her game, still getting better.
Sabalenka is also aware of her biggest fault, the one that most tennis players would kill for: She has a finals problem. She knows she lets big moments get away from her on occasion, a tendency that has resulted in a 22-20 record in finals, including a 4-4 record at the majors.
The Belarusian will once again get a shot at fixing what ails her Sunday at the BNP Paribas Open. She beat world No. 14 Linda Nosková, 6-3, 6-4 for the right to face her greatest adversary at these late stages of tournaments, Elena Rybakina, the 2023 champion here, in a rematch of the Australian Open final they played less than two months ago.
Sabalenka owns an 8-7 career record against Rybakina, who will become the world No. 2 come Monday. But again, there’s that finals problem — Rybakina has won the four most recent of the five championship matches they’ve played.
“I’m so done with losing these big finals. It felt like even though players were playing incredible tennis in those finals, I feel like I had so many opportunities that I didn’t use,” Sabalenka said in her news conference after beating Nosková.
“And right now my mentality, if I make it to the final, I’ll go out there and, you know. I’ll do everything I can and everything I cannot to get that trophy.”
Lately, it looks like there is little Sabalenka can’t do. She has expanded her power-based game to include drop shots and has worked diligently on her feel and timing at net, as well as her willingness to step in. She defeated Nosková with little drama Friday night, even as the 21-year-old from the Czech Republic displayed impressive poise in the face of Sabalenka’s barrage. No matter — Sabalenka put her head down and continued the attack, loose and confident enough to pop a leg out and put her hands on her hips after a mistake, then move on.
“Compared to myself a couple years ago, I’m definitely much better player, more complete player,” Sabalenka said after the match. “I know that if my plan A is not working, I have plan B and C. That’s what we have been really working a lot over the last couple of years.”
Rybakina is in many ways the perfect foil to Sabalenka: impassive in the face of every emotion in the sport and with a lucidity to her game that, at least for now, overrides any need to mess with it. She strikes the ball so cleanly and with such force that she rarely needs to change tack mid-match.
She won her taut semifinal against world No. 9 Elina Svitolina 7-5, 6-4 Friday by winning 78.3 percent of points off her first serve, which is how she wins most of the time. Her serve is proving especially effective in 2026, as she leads the tour with 130 aces and is enjoying a consistent presence inside of the top 3 once again, after spending much of 2025 hovering between No. 7 and No. 12.
Friday’s win took Rybakina’s win streak against top-10 players to 12 matches, and put her back in the final of a WTA 1000 for the first time since 2024. In January, she made it back to her first Grand Slam final since losing to Sabalenka in the 2023 Australian Open title match. This time around, she won.
“I think that I was always playing against top players well. Maybe the statistic is not the same, and I was losing these tough matches a bit more before, but I think with the years, with experience, I’m getting this consistency, so hopefully I can just keep on going,” Rybakina said Friday.
“Also, you get to know the players much more, so you play against the same player multiple times, so you know what to expect.”
On Sunday, the setting of Rybakina and Sabalenka’s latest clash could offer an intriguing twist. Both have cruised comfortably through the draw thanks in part to the California desert’s traditionally slower hard courts playing a bit faster this year. In Sabalenka’s other events in 2026, the world No. 1 has an ace rate of 6.6 percent, winning just under three quarters of her first-serve points.
In the Coachella Valley, the ace rate is up to 9.3 percent, and the first-serve points have ticked over 75. Sabalenka expects more of the same Sunday.
“I feel like against Elena, it’s always super-aggressive, it’s all about the first few balls in every point. You know, if you dominate in those two points, I feel like most likely you’re gonna win the point,” Sabalenka said.
Yet Rybakina is preparing for a more physically demanding final match, in part because of the conditions and in part because she and Sabalenka know each other’s games so well.
“It’s a lot about physical, because here, the ball is heavy, the rallies a little bit longer than on the other hard courts, which are a little bit quicker,” Rybakina said.
“It’s gonna be difficult match where we both gonna try to serve well, that’s for sure, put pressure, and, I mean, we will see what’s gonna happen.”
No matter the outcome, Rybakina will reach a career-high No. 2 ranking on Monday. One step closer to Sabalenka.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Tennis, Women’s Tennis
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