French tennis player Alize Lim has shed light on Aryna Sabalenka’s unique training strategy to address her struggles against Iga Swiatek. Both Swiatek and Sabalenka have enjoyed immense success during the 2024 season, with the World No. 1 clinching her fourth French Open title and the latter sweeping the two hard court Slams.
The top two players on the women’s tour have developed an intense rivalry, with Swiatek enjoying an 8-4 lead in their head-to-head record. The Pole also emerged victorious in two of their three meetings this season, all of which took place at WTA 1000 events.After suffering back-to-back defeats to the 23-year-old in the Madrid Open and Italian Open finals, Sabalenka claimed a commanding 6-3, 6-3 victory in their semifinal clash at the Cincinnati Open to narrow the gap in their head-to-head record. The Belarusian emphasized how “badly” she wanted to win the match to ensure that their rivalry remained “interesting” for fans.
“Especially when someone leads against you 8-3 you kind of feel like, ‘Okay, I gotta, I gotta keep it interesting,'” Aryna Sabalenka told the press. “I gotta get my win so it’s interesting for people to watch us play. So yeah, of course, I wanted this win badly.”
During a recent appearance on the Tennis Channel Inside-In podcast, Alize Lim revealed that Aryna Sabalenka’s determination to overcome her struggles against Iga Swiatek has been years in the making.
Two years ago, in an interview with Lim, the Belarusian revealed that she adopted the strategy of thinking about Swiatek during her training sessions because she was “sick” of constantly losing to the Pole, especially on clay.The Frenchwoman also speculated whether the World No. 1 had a similar mindset regarding her “huge rivalry” with Sabalenka, expressing her appreciation for how they “pushed each other” to improve.
“I remember Aryna Sabalenka telling me in an interview, was it two years ago, that she would think of Iga during practice, during fitness sessions because she was so sick of losing against her on clay and I love that. Maybe it’s the same on the other side. I love that they’re pushing each other and now we have this huge rivalry in women’s tennis,” Lim said.
“The rivalry with Aryna Sabalenka makes it even more interesting now but Iga Swiatek’s been incredible the past few years” – Alize Lim
During the same podcast, Alize Lim highlighted the compelling nature of Iga Swiatek and Aryna Sabalenka’s rivalry and complimented the Pole’s “extreme dominance” despite having room to progress on surfaces outside clay.
“Also the rivalry with Aryna Sabalenka makes it even more interesting now but she’s been incredible the past few years, especially on clay. It’s good that she still has margin to progress on other surfaces but she’s been extremely dominant,” Lim said.
The Frenchwoman also expressed her admiration for Swiatek’s “unbelievable” mentality when dealing with losses and acknowledged the 23-year-old’s significant improvement in managing her emotions.
“She keeps improving, she has an unbelievable mentality to question herself whenever she loses, she always talks about it during press conferences. She’s improved so much emotionally too when you remember a few years ago, at the Australian Open when she would win a match and cry at the end of the match,” she said.
“It seems like she’s just taken all these years in to improve on that departments. It’s crazy to think she’s already at that record and has so many more years to play. She’s still so young,” she added.
Iga Swiatek was set to return to action for her title defense at the China Open but was forced to withdraw from the WTA 1000 event due to “personal matters.” Aryna Sabalenka will lead the field in Beijing in the Pole’s absence, gaining a prime opportunity to make a push for the year-end World No. 1 ranking.
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