AO 2026: No inches given

Aryna dominates

It’s a familiar sight – Sabalenka roaring her way into the championship match at Melbourne Park.

With a no-nonsense 6-2, 6-3 performance against Ukrainian Elina Svitolina, the world No.1 advanced to her fourth consecutive Australian Open final, an eighth Grand Slam final overall and a fifth from her last six appearances at the majors.

It’s also Sabalenka’s seventh straight final at a hard-court Grand Slam – a feat only achieved by two other women in the Open Era, Steffi Graf and Martina Hingis.

After dominating the opening set, Sabalenka had to wipe an early 0-2 deficit in the second before she regained control of the semi-final and claimed her sixth victory from seven meetings with Svitolina.

The 27-year-old tallied up 29 winners against just 15 unforced errors en route to her 76-minute win.

“I feel good about my tennis. I feel like everything that I have been working on during the preseason is working. I'm happy with that, and I'm just taking it one day at a time,” said Sabalenka, who is a perfect 11-0 so far in 2026, with a title in Brisbane under her belt.

Sabalenka lost five of the nine finals she made last year, including one to Madison Keys at the Australian Open.

She is confident she’ll have a better success rate this season.

“I know what was wrong in all of those finals that I played and I lost, and I would say that last year was lots of lessons, lots of things to learn about myself, and definitely not gonna happen again this season,” she said on Thursday.

“It's just different mentality that I will try to have in each final that I play. I feel like those frustrations were coming from not agreeing with what's going on in the moment, and right now my mentality is like I'm ready to do whatever. Whatever is going to be in that finals, I'm ready to go out there and fight with what I have and do everything I can.

“I think when I have this mentality, I play my best tennis, and I'm there, I'm fighting, I have my opportunities. So that's my approach to the finals this season.”

Strong start

Despite her defeat, Svitolina has plenty to celebrate as she secured her return to the top 10 in next week’s rankings for the first time since October 2021 and the first time since becoming a mother, thanks to her impressive start to the season.

The 31-year-old won her first 10 matches of 2026, dropping just one set in the process. She lifted the 19th title of her career in Auckland before reaching her first Australian Open semi-final and is keen to carry that momentum moving forward this campaign.

“I’m definitely very, very happy with the two weeks here and in New Zealand, as well, winning. Of course, gutted to not make it through tonight, but yeah, of course it's very difficult when you're playing world No.1, who is really on fire,” said Svitolina.

“It was really complicated for me today, but I just want to take positives from the past weeks, the beginning of the year, and just carry them through for the season.”

Rybakina holds off Pegula

Just like Sabalenka, Rybakina has yet to drop a set this fortnight.

The former Wimbledon champion ousted Jessica Pegula 6-3, 7-6(7) to reach the third Grand Slam final of her career and first in three years.

Pegula put up a late fight in the contest, breaking Rybakina twice as the Kazakhstani fifth seed was serving for the match and forced a tiebreak.

In the breaker, Pegula held two set points but Rybakina survived both before scooping up the victory on her fourth match point after one hour and 40 minutes of play.

The ace leader at the Australian Open so far, Rybakina added six more to her tally on Thursday to take her total to 41.

“It was such a battle. It was an epic second set. I'm really glad that I managed to win it,” Rybakina said on court.

“Jessica played so well in the second set, she fought until the end and I'm just super happy to be in the final.”

Rybakina, who beat Sabalenka in last year’s title decider at the WTA Finals, has won her last nine consecutive matches against top-10 opposition.

Her clash with Sabalenka in Melbourne from three years ago was one of the best matches of the season and the pair always bring out the best in each other on court.

“It was a great battle we played. She played a bit better than me and she won that much deservedly. I want to enjoy the final and hopefully I'm going to serve better than today and it's going to help me and we will see, but yeah, I'm so excited to play,” said Rybakina.