Streaking Aryna Sabalenka lands strong opening salvo in Melbourne return

WATCH: Sabalenka kicked off the 2023 season by winning her 11th WTA title in Adelaide.

Aryna Sabalenka kicked off her 2023 Australian Open campaign with an ace and all I could think was, “What a difference a year makes.”

Sabalenka wasn’t hitting too many aces in her last trip to Melbourne; she hit two on Tuesday, but more impressively won just under 90% of points played behind her first serve to knock out Tereza Martincova, 6-1, 6-4, in 69 minutes on an absurdly hot Rod Laver Arena.

“It wasn’t that easy match, and I’m super happy to start with the win,” Sabalenka said on court, thanking the crowd for their support.

Last year, she was struggling just to keep her serve in the court for a painful week that ultimately ended in the fourth round at the hands of Kaia Kanepi.

It was the latest setback for a player seemingly built for Grand Slam success but was constantly undone by a fatal flaw. For a long time, it was her inexperience on the Grand Slam stage, her struggle to reach the second week. Then it was her nerves, which haunted her through an ugly 2021 US Open semifinal defeat to Leylah Fernandez.

Her serving struggles proved the greatest indignity because they were impossible to hide. She racked up double faults in ways that strained credulity, and all facets of the shot completely failed her.

But for a player ostensibly armed with only one game plan, The Girl with the Tiger Tattoo has proven remarkably adept at problem-solving. She reworked the biomechanics of her motion and by the summer was back to her best, reaching the US Open semifinals and finishing runner-up at the WTA Finals in Fort Worth.

Taking only a short break over the off-season, opting instead to play exhibitions like the World Tennis League, Sabalenka has shown no rust to start 2023 and began the year with 11th career title in Adelaide. She is yet to drop a set this season.

“I guess we did everything right, it worked a lot,” Sabalenka joked of her scintillating form. “We had our family with us, so it wasn’t that tough because our family was there.

"I think just because of the last year and because I was struggling with a lot of things, and just because I was able to fix all the problems I was facing last year, and of course after a title, of course I felt like a little bit more, I mean, confidence," she added after the match.

"I just feel that I have everything in my pocket, and I just have to show that."

Sabalenka rode that momentum into the Australian Open, where she fought off four break points early on against the flat-hitting Martincova to race through six of the first seven games.

Fending off a similarly tense serve game to start the second set, Sabalenka’s solid serving unlocked an indomitable ground game that yielded 29 winners to 20 unforced errors in little more than an hour, drawing one final forehand miss from Martincova to edge over the finish line.

“I’ve been working on it all my career,” she said of her improved variety. “Finally, it’s starting to work! It took me, I don’t know how many years to get this feeling.

“The only thing I can say is that I'm really working hard," she said in her post-match press conference. “Physically, mentally, yes, I'm ready to go deep. Hopefully I will do my best on court, and I will go deep."

Up next for the No. 5 seed is American Shelby Rogers, whom Sabalenka beat twice in 2022—most recently on hard courts in Cincinnati last summer—but with the road to an elusive first Grand Slam title in front of her, is anything still standing in her way?

“I think I need to work on my mindset,” she conceded. “I need to be calm and just fight for every point and don’t get upset with every mistake I’m making. I really think this is the only thing missing from my game.”

One last problem for Sabalenka, and she has six more matches to solve it.