Aryna Sabalenka put aside her Brisbane demons from 12 months ago to clinch her first title of 2025, while Czechia's Jiří Lehečka won the men's final in unwanted circumstances after Reilly Opelka's withdrawal.
It was meant to be a mismatch initially, but world No.1 Sabalenka was made to work against world No.107 Polina Kudermetova.
The 21-year-old Russian qualifier hasn’t followed the script all week in Brisbane, and she continued that trend.
Click here to watch live tennis on Stan Sport.
Kudermetova took the form that saw her beat top 10 player Daria Kasatkina en route to making her first WTA final.
With Sabalenka chalking up the unforced error count, a confident Kudermetova took the opener 6-4.
Early in the second set, an upset looked on the cards when the young talent was up 2-1 and looked likely to break.
Then Sabalenka, who lost the Brisbane final in 2024 to Elena Rybakina, shifted into gear.
As the unforced errors reduced, she began to dominate, winning 92 per cent of points on her first serve.
Kudermetova's confidence, like her serve, was broken. She dropped from 70 per cent of first serves in during the first set to just 43 per cent.
Sabalenka took her form and confidence into the third to win her 18th title 4-6 6-3 6-2.
After the match, she thanked the local crowd for their support.
"Thank you Brisbane for having me," the two-time Australian Open champion said.
“All the fans, thank you guys for supporting me, I felt all of the support from the start of the week to the very last point. That’s why I love playing in Australia, you guys are amazing.”
Sabalenka has now won 11 straight matches in Australia.
Despite Kudermetova’s loss, she will rise from 50 places to a new career high of No.57.
She summed up her achievement when accepting the runner-up trophy.
"I played from qualies to the final," she said.
"It's a really nice week for me."
However, she won’t have time to enjoy the achievement as she plays Australian Open qualifying next week.
Sabalenka now heads to Melbourne to defend her Australian Open title for the second-straight year.
Meanwhile, big-serving American Opelka was forced to pull out of the men's final due to a back injury, trailing 1-4.
The 27-year-old failed to drop a set all tournament, including victory against Novak Djokovic, but despite the physio working on him throughout the day, Opelka opted to sit out after the completion of five games to give himself the best chance at the Australian Open.
Despite skipping nearly half of last season, Lehečka will return to the top-25 when the ATP rankings update on Monday, January 6.
Sports FX empowers professional athletes with tailored currency management solutions that help you maximise your earnings while competing globally. To see how it works head to www.sportsfx.com.au
Comments