Aryna Sabalenka

Aryna Sabalenka is a Belarusian professional tennis player. Aryna started playing tennis at the age of six, when she and her father Sergey were driving past the tennis courts, and he decided to try to send the daughter to classes. According to her, at the age of nine she realized that tennis was not suitable for her, but continued her studies so as not to disappoint her parents. She has been a top ten player in both singles and doubles, having been ranked as high as No. 1 in singles and No. 1 in doubles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA). Sabalenka won her first Grand Slam title in doubles at the 2019 US Open alongside Elise Mertens. The pair repeated their success at the Australian Open in 2021. She is the winner of one Grand Slam singles tournament (Australian Open 2023). She has won 19 WTA titles in total, 13 in singles and 6 in doubles. Sabalenka was unheralded as a junior and relatively unknown until 2017 when she rose to prominence by leading the Belarus Fed Cup team to a runner-up finish with Aliaksandra Sasnovich, despite both of them being ranked outside the top 75 at the time. Following the 2017 Fed Cup, she began having more success on the WTA Tour, reaching four finals in 2018 to go along with eight top ten victories. Sabalenka continued to excel in singles in 2019 with three titles in China, highlighted by a defense of her Wuhan Open title at the Premier 5 level and by winning the WTA Elite Trophy at the end of the year. She finished both 2018 and 2019 ranked No. 11 in the world in singles. Sabalenka began playing doubles regularly in 2019. With Elise Mertens as her partner, she completed the Sunshine Double by winning the two Premier Mandatory tournaments in March, the Indian Wells Open and the Miami Open.