Aryna Sabalenka kicked off her Indian Wells run with a 7-6 (4) 6-3 win over rising star McCartney Kessler and then warned her rivals that she mentally recovered from the Australian Open final loss and that she was back to feeling “hungry.”
After falling just short to Madison Keys in an absolute thriller final at Melbourne Park and failing to join a selected list of players who completed an Australian Open three-peat, the world No. 1 didn’t look like herself during last month’s Middle East, going only 1-2.
While Sabalenka didn’t clinch a really convincing win against Kessler in her Indian Wells opener, it should be noted that the American – who finished as runner-up in Austin last week – was definitely a very tricky matchup for an opening match.
“I’m hungrier than I was in the Middle East. I mean, it’s way to go. It’s tough to say, like, third month of the season, so I wouldn’t rate my season anyhow,” the three-time Grand Slam champion said.
Sabalenka: In Doha and Dubai, I was thinking about the Australian Open final
At the start of the Middle East, the Belarusian picked up a shock defeat to Ekaterina Alexandrova in her Doha opener. In Dubai, she managed to beat Veronika Kudermetova in her first match but then got dominated 3-6 2-6 by Clara Tauson in her next match.
In Indian Wells, Sabalenka admitted that she wasn’t mentally where she needed to be during those two tournaments but also underlined that is now a thing of the past.
“I’d say that the final in Australia was really heartbreaking. It was very difficult to recover after that one, and Middle East I was kind of like, in my thoughts, I was trying to understand. I was always thinking about that match. It was, like, probably my mistake, but I think I had to go through, I had to realize a couple of things. I had to kind of like step back and start everything over again. Right now, I’m definitely feeling better and that final was in the past,” she explained.
In the Indian Wells third round, Sabalenka plays against Lucia Bronzetti, whom she twice easily beat last year.
Tennis World USA