Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek have dominated the WTA Tour in recent years, winning nine of the past fifteen Grand Slams together.
But when the draw for the women’s singles at the Australian Open took place last week, both Sabalenka and Swiatek might have breathed a sigh of relief.
That’s because they were drawn in opposite halves by two players who have made their lives difficult in the past. For Sabalenka it is Amanda Anisimova; for Swiatek it is Coco Gauff.
Swiatek leads Gauff 11-5, but the American has won the past four meetings, all in straight sets. Anisimova leads Sabalenka 6-5, although the Belarusian has won three of the past four.
Head-to-head records are important in tennis; the one-on-one nature of the sport means that when one player has another, he or she often continues to beat them even if their opponent is higher ranked or has been in better form.
“I used to think about it so much because you want to get that one win,” Gauff said Monday at the Australian Open. “I think once I got that… I cleared the other matches.
“Evidently, [Swiatek] is a great player, and she deserved those wins, but I felt like a lot of them were – some of those losses, I won’t say much, because she just outplayed me, but some of them, at least in the beginning, were just already having a mental deficit. I think once I wiped out that mental deficit, I was able to play freely.”
Gauff said Swiatek was the only player who made her feel that way. Winning one match was liberating. “There was no other confrontation in tennis where I had that, so it was very difficult to navigate,” she said. “Now I feel like I can play freely. Obviously there’s still a big gap in the head-to-head. I just erase it from my mind. I can’t change the past, but I’ve learned from it.”
And when the winning streak is over, tennis players will often tell themselves whatever they need to do to maintain their confidence. Swiatek, who won her sixth major title at Wimbledon last summer, is not immune to this, it seems.
“Honestly, no [play on my mind]Swiatek said. ‘Even when I won against her, that didn’t happen. That’s why I think it was possible for me to continue, because I didn’t take it for granted or… come to a competition unfocused.
“I think it tells you a little bit more about maybe the game or things that you should work on or improve on because, you know, she’s improved too. So yeah, but the confrontation I don’t think really matters. Maybe for her, if you ask her the same question, it’s different.”
Swiatek even overlooked the fact that she had played against Gauff this month when she lost to the American in the United Cup. “I think I really want to treat each match as a separate story,” she said. “Every match takes place in different circumstances, so there is no point in always coming back [to it]. The last time we played was Madrid, which was also over six months [ago]. It’s quite a long time in tennis life. For me it’s not a whole story. It’s more about how I feel that month or that week and how she feels, how we’re going to play against each other. That’s it.”
And it is also possible for head-to-head to reverse.
Roger Federer lost the first three and then seven of his first nine matches against Lleyton Hewitt, and lost the first four and six of the first seven to Britain’s Tim Henman, but finished with a winning record against both. Chris Evert led Martina Navratilova 22-4 at one point, but ultimately trailed 43-37. And even Vitas Gerulaitis won one match against Jimmy Connors, which gave rise to the famous statement: “Nobody beats Vitas Gerulaitis 17 times in a row.”
Anisimova won her first four meetings with Sabalenka in straight sets, matching the Belarusian’s power from the baseline. “We had a lot of difficult matches,” Anisimova said last summer. “We’ve played three sets in a lot of them. I think we’re both big hitters, and big hitters like to go against each other. I feel like we always bring the best to each other’s games, and we always raise the level when we play against each other. I mean, I always enjoy the challenge that she brings. I’m sure it’s the same the other way around.”
However, Sabalenka has managed to turn the tide by winning five of the past seven matches, including the US Open final last September.
There are of course other contenders, but with Gauff in Sabalenka’s half and Anisimova with Swiatek, any meeting at the Australian Open with their enemies can only take place in the final.
No matter what they say, if that happens, the data will be somewhere in the back of their minds.
#biggest #mutual #rivalry #womens #tennis