By Lidia Kelly and Shrivathsa Sridhar
MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Aryna Sabalenka said trying to out-muscle a similarly powerful Madison Keys in the Australian Open final was the wrong approach and she should have been more tactical after her bid to claim a third straight title at the Grand Slam ended in failure.
American 19th seed Keys produced some stunning ball-striking in the title clash at Rod Laver Arena to beat the Belarusian 6-3 2-6 7-5 after a two-hour battle on Saturday.
“I would have tried not to out-hit her but to play more tactically and probably the most important thing, but to boldly go after the ball,” Sabalenka told Reuters in Russian.
“Now it’s tough to say what the most important lesson is, because the match was so complete. It may be to adapt during the warm-up, so that you go out on court as charged as possible, so that you can move around from the very beginning.
“It’s obvious that there were decisive moments at the start, I just let her warm up and then I heroically tried to get out of the situation and return to a more equal situation.”
Both players hit 29 winners but the quality and timing of the shots Keys produced left Sabalenka helpless at times.
“I mean, if she can play consistently like that, there’s it’s not much you can do. I mean, of course, I know how to play against her, but in this match I couldn’t really do my stuff,” Sabalenka told reporters.
“She just played incredible. It seemed like she was over-hitting everything. The depths of the balls were really crazy. I was trying my best. Obviously it didn’t work well.
“If she can continue playing the way she was playing today, yeah, she can be in the top five.”
Victory would have made Sabalenka the first woman to lift the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup in three successive years since Swiss Martina Hingis from 1997-99 and the 26-year-old said she was disappointed not to seal the deal.
“I think when you get to the point of finals, it’s the trophy or nothing. Nobody remembers the finalist or puts their name next to the winner’s.
“At this point, I go for titles. But I have to be proud of myself after reaching three finals in a row. That’s something crazy. I hope next year I’ll come back as a better player and hold Daphne one more time.”
(Writing by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Melbourne, editing by Ed Osmond)
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