‘Best morning of my life’: Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka celebrates Slam breakthrough

New Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka didn’t get a lot sleep Saturday night time after a rambunctious come-from-behind victory, however you wouldn’t have recognized it early on the morning after.

“I still feel like I’m on another planet trying to understand what just happened,” Sabalenka replied to a query from AFP whereas revelling in a photograph shoot at Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Gardens.

Resplendent in a glamorous pink costume and sporting excessive heels as a substitute of her common tennis pumps, Sabalenka took to a ship and glided round a lake with the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup clutched firmly in hand.

The highly effective Belarusian, who turned world quantity two on Monday, confirmed a brand new aspect to her character, posing effortlessly in entrance of the cameras.

She even managed a number of excessive kicks, regardless of being understandably stiff after being taken to a few gruelling units lower than 12 hours earlier by Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina.

“How are you still managing to do that?” she was requested.

“I have no idea,” a barely wincing however ebullient Sabalenka laughed, earlier than cracking open a bottle of champagne and spraying it in celebration, Formula One-style.

“I like to pose. Especially when you’re a champion,” she chuckled, when requested whether or not she was having fun with the trimmings that include being a significant winner.

“I think it’s the best morning of my life. It’s so beautiful.”

Serenely being photographed by the world’s media at one among Melbourne’s most picturesque areas was a scene Sabalenka might have scarcely imagined 12 months earlier.

Her serve was in items, leaving her in tears as her confidence was shredded below assaults of debilitating nerves.

Now Sabalenka is having fun with the sensation of turning into a Grand Slam champion on the age of 24 — and at last conquering her inside demons.

– ‘It’s simply too loopy’ –

Never was that new psychological metal higher illustrated than below the glare of the Rod Laver Arena lights on Saturday night time, the place Sabalenka dropped her first set of 2023 however clawed her manner again to win 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.

She wanted 4 match factors to serve out and clear the ultimate hurdle, a double fault costing one among them as the stress turned virtually insufferable.

But this new model of Sabalenka retains calm and carries on the place the outdated one would have wilted.

“I’m always thinking about the match about some points and especially the last game,” mentioned Sabalenka about what was her maiden Grand Slam closing.

“But it’s just too crazy, there’s so many thoughts in my head and I’m just trying to relax for a second.”

The Saturday night time victory occasion will need to have been an excellent one — there have been a number of staff members lacking on Sunday morning.

“It was a funny night, everyone was just too happy, so some of us didn’t make it today, it was too much last night,” Sabalenka laughed.

So what now for the Belarusian, who will probably be a marked lady and regarded very otherwise when she subsequent hits the circuit as a reigning Grand Slam champion?

“Yeah, it’s going to be different,” she admitted, and mentioned she would want a while off earlier than returning to the WTA circuit within the Middle East subsequent month.

“I think I’m going to play only Dubai (beginning February 19), because I need some time to rest, just to calm down from everything that has happened and start over again.”