Aryna Sabalenka kicked off her WTA Finals 2024 campaign with a resounding 6-3, 6-4 win over Qinwen Zheng in her first match on Saturday. Sabalenka is one of the favorites to win the year-ending championship and end up as the undisputed World No.1 women’s player in the sport. The Belarusian, who has been in the eye of a storm after displacing Iga Swiatek for the top ranking, spoke about the same in a press conference.
Sabalenka claimed that she had no clue about mathematical calculations coming into play, which resulted in Swiatek getting stripped of above 100 points. That played a big role in the reigning US Open champion regaining the World No.1 ranking.
It was her entrepreneur-boyfriend Georgios Frangulis who broke the news to her. All that Sabalenka felt at the time was shock, exclaiming, ‘What?!” She was quoted as saying to the media,
“I just woke up another morning. My boyfriend actually told me like, Oh, congrats, you became world No. 1. I’m like, What?
“I didn’t know anything in that moment. Whatever, I’ll take it.
“As I always say, I want to finish the year as world No. 1, then I’ll be like okay, I’ll be more confident on saying I’m world No. 1, not because someone lost hundred points and that’s how I became world No. 1.”
Aryna Sabalenka says she’ll feel better about being world #1 if she can finish the year as the world #1, ‘I’ll be more confident on saying I’m world No. 1, not because someone lost 100 points’
“When you went back to No. 1 the other day, some people were surprised because the… pic.twitter.com/70az6Sl5nS
— The Tennis Letter (@TheTennisLetter) November 1, 2024
Sabalenka has done enough to reclaim the World No.1 ranking by winning the Australian Open, US Open, Cincinnati Open, and Wuhan Open. She also made it to the finals of the Madrid Open and the Italian Open, losing in both matches to Swiatek. However, their rivalry is just on the court, as their equation has grabbed eyeballs after Sabalenka took the No.1 spot from her.
Swiatek and Sabalenka came up with content segments before WTA Finals 2024
Swiatek came up with a TikTok reel featuring Sabalenka a few days ago, and the Pole graciously thanked her biggest rival at the moment for encouraging her to use the platform. The now-World No.2 said in her press conference,
“Big achievement in my life. Well yeah, she convinced me to do it.
“Obviously, I’m not the kind of person who goes on TikTok a lot but it was really fun doing something else and I can learn from her actually how to do proper TikToks.
“I wanted to use this experience and use this opportunity and also I’m happy that we could show to fans that we were getting along because that is also important.
“We really respect each other so it was fun to to practice with Aryna and do a TikTok. Hopefully, there will be some more in future.”
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Swiatek may genuinely believe that Sabalenka deserves to be the World No.1, but all the niceties will have to be cast aside if they clash against each other in the semifinals or the finals of the WTA Finals. Should they meet, that could be the match that would decide which player will end up as the year-ending World No.1.
