By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Sunday October 29, 2023
As she prepares for this 12 months’s WTA Finals in Cancun, and solidifying her spot because the WTA’s year-end No.1, Aryna Sabalenka says that life on the high isn’t actually all that completely different than it was earlier than.
The Belarusian fulfilled a lifelong dream when she rose to No.1 on this planet on September 11, and believes that issues are usually not that a lot completely different now that she has stood atop the WTA’s rating desk for seven weeks.
“It isn’t completely different, to be trustworthy,” she mentioned in Cancun, the place she is making ready to face Maria Sakkari in spherical robin play on Sunday.
25-year-old Sabalenka instructed reporters that she want she had recognized of her capacities previous to this 12 months.
“I am pondering that is actually loopy,” she mentioned when requested to sum up her 2023 season, which additionally featured her maiden main title on the Australian Open. “I want I’d know earlier that I truly can play that good.
“It is simply tremendous nice season, I believe the very best season in my life up to now. Hopefully that is just the start: with yearly I am going to play higher and higher and the outcomes might be higher and higher.” Removed from content material, Sabalenka says she plans to make use of her 2023 efficiency as inspiration – she aspires for greater and higher issues.
One in crimson, seven in white: the EIGHT QUEENS of the WTA FINALS 2023!
(📸 Aryna Sabalenka, story IG) pic.twitter.com/G7NtwfHv7A
— We Are Tennis (@WeAreTennis) October 28, 2023
“I take advantage of this 12 months as a motivation for me to maintain working arduous, to maintain pushing, and see the place is my restrict are,” she mentioned.
By no means thoughts the rating, for the hard-hitting Belarusian, the aim is to maintain the blinders on, hold working arduous and end robust – whether or not there’s a goal on her again or not.
“I believe rating, it is simply rating, you recognize?” she mentioned. “It isn’t like I’m going on court docket proper now and everybody might be, Okay, I am not enjoying, you are No. 1, good luck within the subsequent spherical.
“It isn’t altering something. I nonetheless must work arduous. I nonetheless must carry my finest tennis on court docket. I believe I even must work extra as a result of proper now I really feel like I am a goal for everybody.
“It isn’t altering something. I am nonetheless working arduous, making an attempt to enhance.”