Aryna Siarhiejeŭna Sabalenka

Aryna Siarhiejeŭna Sabalenka is a professional tennis player from Belarus, born in Minsk to a hockey player Sergey. She started playing tennis by chance at the age of 6 when her father drove her by the tennis courts, and she decided to give it a try. She is a right-handed player with an aggressive style of play. Having a good height (5' 11"), she has a powerful serve and groundstrokes.

Aryna made her debut at the ITF Women’s World Tennis Tour in her hometown Minsk in 2012. In 2014, she won her first professional match in Istanbul. In the same year, she represented her nation at the Junior Fed Cup and made her senior debut in Fed Cup in 2016. However, she never played in any junior Grand Slam events or any high-level events.

Here are some of her major career achievements:

• Became Australian Open Champion in doubles in 2021, again partnering with Elise Mertens and ultimately gained the World No. 1 ranking in doubles for the first time in her career.
• Won the doubles title of US Open in 2019, partnering with Elise Mertens, the first Grand Slam title of her career in any discipline. The pair defeated Victoria Azarenka and Ashleigh Barty 7-5, 7-5 in the finals.
• Emerged victorious in the singles event at the 2019 WTA Elite Trophy held in China by defeating Dutch player Kiki Bertens 6-4, 6-2
• Bagged the singles titles of 2018 and 2019 Wuhan Open and 2020 Qatar Open and doubles titles of Indian Wells Open and Miami Open in 2019, all being WTA 1000 final events.
• Earned the title of 2018 WTA Newcomer of the Year, owing to her incredible performance during the season
• Won two WTA 125K series finals events, one being the Mumbai Open 2017 singles title and the other being Taipei Open 2017 doubles event, partnering with Russian player Veronika Kudermetova