Aryna Sabalenka is officially the WTA year-end No. 1, but the Belarusian outlined why she did not want to know what results she required at the WTA Finals to achieve that.
Sabalenka entered the season-ending tournament with a lead of 1,046 points to Iga Swiatek at No. 2. The four-time French Open champion had built a significant lead over her rival by the end of the grass-court season, but that evaporated.
A drop in form and results after winning the Australian Open led to Sabalenka falling to No. 3 in the rankings behind Coco Gauff. But the decision to skip the Olympics and begin the North American hard court season early proved inspired.
After getting some match practice at the Citi Open and Canadian Open, Sabalenka won the Cincinnati Open before winning her first US Open title a few weeks later. She defeated Jessica Pegula in both finals.
Those successes took Sabalenka back to No. 2 and closer to Swiatek at No. 1, but she still had work to do. The 26-year-old inched even closer to the Pole by winning the Wuhan Open for a third time.
Since Swiatek did not play any tournaments between the US Open and last week’s WTA Finals, Sabalenka was guaranteed to become No. 1 when Swiatek dropped the points she won from winning the 2023 WTA Finals.
However, Sabalenka overtook Swiatek earlier than expected because of a controversial WTA rule about playing six mandatory WTA 500 tournaments, which resulted in both women having the points from their lowest-earning tournament removed.
That hurt Swiatek more, leading to Sabalenka becoming the No. 1. After Swiatek also dropped her points from last year’s WTA Finals, her chances of overtaking the US Open champion and reversing the 1,046-point deficit were slim.
Swiatek’s defeat to the eventual champion Coco Gauff in the round-robin stage sealed Sabalenka’s spot as the year-end No. 1, but in an appearance on Served With Andy Roddick, the three-time Grand Slam winner revealed she had asked not to know the results needed to finish at No. 1.
“Honestly, I wasn’t really focusing on like, World No. 1 ranking and what should I do to like to finish the year as World No. 1? You know, I didn’t do that math, you know, I was like, whatever.”
“In an interview, they asked me like, do you know what you have to do to finish the year as world number one. I was like, ‘No, and don’t tell me, please, I don’t want to know that.’ I just wanted to focus on my tennis and just stay focused.”
However, Sabalenka could not avoid the news after she won her first two matches, and Swiatek lost to Gauff. The 26-year-old then lost her last round-robin match to Elena Rybakina and the semifinal to Gauff, and Sabalenka thinks she lost focus after becoming the year-end world No. 1.
“And as you see, after winning two matches, the news was everywhere, and I was like, oh, no, please just don’t do that to me. And I, I probably that’s why I lost my focus kind of and I don’t know, I like at that moment, I felt like I did everything I could in this season. I was like, I don’t have any energy left to compete and to fight.”
