24-year-old Belarus native Aryna Sabalenka managed to beat Elena Rybakina to win the 2023 Australian Open, find out why she played under a neutral or no flag, match details and record, off-court issues, and more
Arynaโs Australian Open victory against the current Wimbledon champion Elena also marks her first Grand Slam singles title.
Explained why did Aryna Sabalenka compete under a no or neutral flag at the Australian Open tennis 2023 and what is her country
Aryna Sabalenka has won the Australian Open! ๐ ๐
Her first ever Grand Slam title ๐
Wow!#BBCTennis #AusOpen pic.twitter.com/g6mJwZzP6Z
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) January 28, 2023
The moment Aryna Sabalenka became a Grand Slam champion for the first time ๐
๐น @AustralianOpen
— ๐๐ก๐ ๐๐ฉ๐จ๐ซ๐ญ๐ข๐ง๐ ๐๐๐ฐ๐ฌ (@sportingnews) January 28, 2023
๐ฃ๏ธ โYou deserve this trophy more than me.โ ๐ค
๐ Aryna Sabalenka salutes her team after winning the Australian Open title #AusOpen pic.twitter.com/u7p5iJVfJb
— Eurosport (@eurosport) January 28, 2023
Sabalenkaโs first Grand Slam title is also the first ever Grand Slam singles title won by a player competing under a neutral flag.
Aryna Sabalenka vs Elena Rybakina match details and record
Aryna managed to win past Elena with a 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 record. Sabalenka lost the first set but managed to overcome Rybakina in the following sets. Aryna, the current world No. 5 delivered altogether 17 aces and she won 72% of the points during her first serve.
Her dramatic victory also won her the prize money worth around $2 million (โฌ1.8 million). Prior to this win, Sabalenka had lost three Grand Slam semifinals.
A bizarre victory
Despite the victory, Sabalenka did not get to have โBelarusโ on the winner’s trophy next to her name. Moreover, she played throughout the tournament without her flag next to her name. This is because the Belarusian government is currently a supporter of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Due to this reason, the Australian Open had earlier announced that Russian and Belarusian players will not get to compete under their countryโs flag or name. Last year, players from these two countries were even banned from competing at Wimbledon.
The Belarus tennis federation however, quickly extended their congratulations towards the country’s second tennis Grand Slam winner. When reporters asked Sabalenka after the match about whether competing under a neural flag took something away from the triumph, she simply replied bluntly satting:
I think everyone still knows that I’m Belarusian player. That’s it.
Weโre just athletes playing their sport
Last year in December, ahead of the Australian Open 2023, Sabalenka shared with Australian newspaper โThe Ageโ about playing under a neutral flag. She shared how playing under a neutral flag in Melbourne has made her feel as though she came “from nowhere.”
She further added:
Iโm just really disappointed sport is somehow in politics,” the 24-year-old continued. “Weโre just athletes playing their sport. Thatโs it. Weโre not about politics. If all of us could do something, we would do it, but we have zero control.
Sabalenka added:
They banned us from Wimbledon, and what did it change? Itโs really terrible because nobody supports the war, nobody.
A series of off-court issues
The 2023 Australian Open has witnessed a series of off-court issues. Just recently, Andy Murray expressed his frustration about player welfare, which sparked a lot of conversation around playing times.
More recently, Novak Djokovicโs his father got a lot of criticism for posing in a photo with a man holding a Russian flag with President Vladimir Putin’s face on it. Djokovic claimed that the media and officials โmisinterpretedโ his actions.