WATCH: Aryna Sabalenka’s funny face and cheeky reply to Elena Rybakina has the audience bursting into laughter
Aryna Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina played against each other again but this time the Kazakh tennis professional emerged victorious.
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Aryna Sabalenka and Elena Ryabakina (Image Credit: MidDay)
Despite losing to Elena Rybakina in the final of the Indian Wells Open 2023, Aryna Sabalenka was in a playful mood. Both the players were standing up for the presentation ceremony and Elena Rybakina was giving her speech after the victory and congratulating the Belarusian for her performance. Meanwhile, Aryna Sabalenka intervened her mid-way in her speech, making everybody in the audience and dignitaries to burst out laughing.
The Kazakh tennis professional is very elated as she won her career’s fourth WTA title. But this is also her career’s maiden WTA Masters and Indian Wells Open title. However, Aryna Sabalenka stole the limelight with her cheeky response.
“And of course I want to congratulate Aryna (Sabalenka) for the great two weeks, great results, this year and years before… you have done amazing job with your team so congratulations and…yeah it’s actually first time it went my way…so we will see, hopefully, we gonna play in many more finals,” Elena Rybakina had said before Aryna Sabalenka responded with “I’ll make sure it was the last one…!”.
The Wimbledon 2022 champion returned with a retort, “No…No…No…Will see…Will see next time. But yeah…It’s always been a pleasure to play against you and always toughest battles”.
Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) shared an excerpt of this video on social media.
Both the players will soon start their journey in the Miami Open 2023.
Aryna Sabalenka v Elena Rybakina: Head to Head
Both the ladies have played against each other five times in their career. Aryna Sabalenka leads Elena Rybakina four times to one in these encounters. The first encounter between both the players was in the Quarter-final round of the Wuhan Open 2019. The Belarusian won that match 6-3, 1-6, 6-1. Since then the Belarusian has enjoyed an unprecedented winning streak against the Kazakh tennis professional.
This year this is their second meeting. The two also played the final of the Australian Open 2023. Elena Rybakina lost that match despite winning the first set. The scoreline read 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 in favour of Aryna Sabalenka.
The next WTA tournament, the Miami Open 2023 will give another opportunity to the two players to renew their rivalry. Also, since Elena Rybakina too is in the Top 10 of the WTA singles rankings, the tennis fans would expect that such exciting matches between the two will continue in the future in the advanced stages of the tennis tournaments.
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Abhar Indorkar
(451 Articles Published)