On the way to Texas

The story of how Victoria Azarenka helped Aryna Sabalenka get to the WTA Finals

Aryna Sabalenka will play for the second time at the Women’s Tennis Association Finals in singles. At the tournament in Guadalajara Open Akron — the last event before the final competition of the eight best tennis players of the season — the Belarusian could not get into the 1/8 finals: in the first round she lost to the Russian Liudmila Samsonova. Sabalenka dropped to sixth place in the championship race after that. It would seem that the prospects for playing at the Final Tournament became a little vaguer, because the gap in points between the contenders for places in the grid was small, but Aryna managed to break into the number of participants in prestigious competitions. Not without the help of Victoria Azarenka. 
Azarenka was the best of our tennis players in Guadalajara. While Aliaksandra Sasnovich and Aryna Sabalenka were forced to cover their rackets after the opening matches, Victoria confidently walked along the tournament distance. In the first round, the former world No. 1 in tennis was supposed to meet with the Chinese Zhang Shuai, but she withdrew from the tournament, so Azarenka played with the Russian Elina Avanesyan and defeated her in two sets — 6:4, 6:2. In the match for reaching the 1/8 finals, Victoria played with the world No. 8 in tennis Paula Badosa. The Spaniard lost in the first set with a score of 2:6 and could not continue the fight. The meeting for reaching the quarterfinals against the American Madison Keys lasted for three sets, but Azarenka came out the winner — 6:4, 6:7, 6:1. Keys also claimed to reach the Finals, but the defeat in this fight left her out, but opened the way to Fort Worth for Aryna Sabalanka, which this season will host the final battle of the eight best tennis players... 

Photo by REUTERS


All participants of the Finals are already known. This is the world ranking leader Iga Swiatek, who is having an amazing season: this time she has already won eight titles (now there are eleven in her career of a tennis player)! Moreover, the Polish woman took the last trophy at the competitions in San Diego, which ended just before the start of the tournament in Guadalajara. In addition to her, Ons Jabeur from Tunisia, Americans Jessica Pegula and Corey Gauff will perform in Fort Worth (she, by the way, became the first 18-year-old tennis player after Maria Sharapova, who managed to break into the decisive tournament of the season), French woman Caroline Garcia, Russian Daria Kasatkina, Greek Maria Sakkari and our Aryna Sabalenka.
Let us remember that Aryna Sabalenka made her way into the top eight of the strongest ‘solo tennis players’ last season for the first time, but for the Belarusian the performance at the Finals then turned out to be not the most successful. She got into the same group with Paula Badosa, Iga Swiatek and Maria Sakkari, and was able to gain only one victory in it (though over Swiatek). It will become known soon with whom Aryna will play this time. The final tournament starts on October 31st, and its total prize pool will be $5 million this year.

By Tatiana Pastushenko