Elina Svitolina entered her semifinal with Aryna Sabalenka playing the best tennis of her life. The 31-year-old Ukrainian reached the final four in Melbourne for the first time this year and didn’t drop a single set along the way.
That top form, and the confidence that came with it, was quickly negated by Sabalenka, who delivered yet another stunning performance to reach her fourth consecutive Australian Open final with a 6-2, 6-3 victory over Svitolina.
Sabalenka is the second woman in the Open Era to reach four consecutive finals in Melbourne, and the first to do it since Martina Hingis reached six on the trot from 1997 to 2002.
“It’s an incredible achievement, but the job is not done yet,” Sabalenka said.
Top-ranked and top-seeded Sabalenka has now reached the final in each of the last seven hard-court majors she has played, and she’ll bid for her fifth major title on Saturday against either Jessica Pegula or Elena Rybakina.
She was quick off the mark, drawing first blood for 3-1 in the opening set, even after an unexpected hindrance call on the first point of the fourth game momentarily puzzled her.
She attacked the net with purpose, cracked winners at will, and pulled away from Svitolina, smashing her 19th winner—a devilish crosscourt backhand—to close the opening set in 41 minutes.
“Right now it really does look like a practice for Sabalenka,” said Caroline Wozniacki, who was commentating the match for ESPN, at one point in the opening set.
It would have been easy for Svitolina to drop her shoulders, but the cagey veteran did anything but in the second set. She drilled down for her first service break in the opening game of the second set then held at love, consolidating for 2-0.
It was a short-lived push from Svitolina, as she soon found herself down 5-2 as prodigious Sabalenka used the baseline as her own personal launching pad. Sabalenka won 12 of the next 13 points to wrestle back the momentum and continued to press for the edge.
At 6-2, 4-2, a graphic from ESPN informed viewers that Sabalenka was making contact on 25 percent of her groundstrokes from inside her baseline—a clear indication of how aggressively she was playing and how it allowed her to dominate the battle of court positioning.
Moments later, Sabalenka finished her victory off, ending the one-hour-and-16-minute tussle with 29 winners, including 15 off the forehand side, and 15 unforced errors.
“This is the most impressive we’ve seen Sabalenka play at this tournament,” confirmed Wozniacki.
Sabalenka has now won 26 of her last 27 Australian Open matches, and she’s done it without dropping a set. Additionally, she has won 45 of 47 matches played at the hard-court majors since the start of 2023. A torrid stretch by any standard.
