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Sabalenka Keeps Emotions in Check to Repeat as US Open Champion

Sabalenka defended her US Open title, controlling emotions to win 6-3, 7-6 (3) in 94 minutes in 2025.

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Aryna Sabalenka successfully defended her US Open crown, beating Amanda Anisimova 6-3, 7-6 (3) in a 94-minute final. The victory gave Sabalenka a second straight US Open trophy and returned her to the top after a dominant season.

“I feel crazy,” Sabalenka said after the match. “I wanna laugh, I wanna scream, I wanna cry at the same time.” Having lost decisive moments in Grand Slam finals earlier in her career, she made emotional control the focal point of her approach in this one.

“Two finals where I completely lost control over my emotions,” she said. “I just didn’t want this to happen again.”

“I decided for myself I’m going to control my emotions. I’m not going to let them take control over me.”

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That discipline was tested. Anisimova rallied midway through the second set, breaking back after misfiring for much of the match. Sabalenka responded with a glare, an added surge of aggression and an immediate break back at love. Later, while serving for the title at 5-4, 30-30, a missed smash proved costly.

“In that smash, I just let the doubt get into my head,” Sabalenka said. “I doubted where should I play it, for some reason.”

“But then I turned around and I took a deep breath in, and I was, like, ‘OK, it happens. It’s in the past. Let’s focus on the next one.’”

Sabalenka settled into a disciplined tiebreak, winning points with first serves and solid forehands rather than wide swings. She finished with 13 winners and 15 unforced errors, a far cry from the 70 errors she committed in the Paris final against Coco Gauff.

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“I knew that it’s going to be very fast game, very aggressive,” she said. “I was just trying to stay as low as possible, and I was just trying to, you know, put that speed, that pressure back on her and see how she can handle it.”

Reflecting on a change in mindset she described as a revelation in Greece, Sabalenka said she no longer assumed a final would be straightforward. “It felt like I thought that, OK, if I made it to the final, it means that I’m going to win it, you know, and I sort of didn’t expect players to come out there and to fight,” she said. “You know, I thought that everything is going to go easily my way, which was completely wrong mindset.”

“Because of the finals earlier this season, this one felt different,” she added. “You know, this one felt like I had to overcome a lot of things to get this one. I knew that, the hard work we put in, I deserved to have a Grand Slam title this season.”

Sabalenka is 57-10 in 2025, reached three Grand Slam finals and the semifinal at the fourth, has been No. 1 all year and is again on top. When Sloane Stephens asked her how she was going to celebrate the moment, Sabalenka said she wanted to do something else, too.

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ATP French Open Grand Slam

Auger-Aliassime Reaches Career-High No. 4 After Breakthrough at Roland Garros

Auger-Aliassime rises to No. 4 after best Roland Garros run, tying second-highest Canadian rank. Now

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Felix Auger-Aliassime moved to a career-high No. 4 in the ATP rankings following his deepest run at Roland Garros, where the 25-year-old reached the quarterfinals for the first time before losing to eventual finalist Flavio Cobolli. The result completed a personal Grand Slam milestone: having previously reached the quarterfinals or better at the Australian Open, Wimbledon and the US Open, he became the first Canadian man to reach the quarterfinals or better at all four majors in his career.

The rise from No. 6 to No. 4 surpasses his prior best of No. 5 and places him tied for the second-highest-ranked Canadian in ATP or WTA rankings history. The only other Canadians to reach the top four are Milos Raonic and Bianca Andreescu. Raonic went as high as No. 3 in 2016, following his run to the Wimbledon final that year, and Andreescu peaked at No. 4 in 2019 after winning the US Open.

Canadian tennis has seen seven players reach the top 10 in either ATP or WTA history, with official rankings available since 1973 for the ATP and 1975 for the WTA.

Auger-Aliassime still has ground to cover to move higher in the standings. He is 2,865 points behind the current world No. 3, Alexander Zverev, with the rankings showing Zverev at 7,305 points and Auger-Aliassime at 4,440.

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The Canadian will shift his focus to grass. He begins his grass-court season this week at the ATP 250 event in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, entering as the No. 1 seed. After a first-round bye he will open against either Hubert Hurkacz or Marton Fucsovics.

The new ranking reflects a season of important progress for Auger-Aliassime and cements his place among the highest-ranked Canadians in modern tennis history.

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ATP French Open Grand Slam

Flavio Cobolli’s Roland Garros run vaults him into ATP Top 10

Flavio Cobolli entered the ATP Top 10 after his first Grand Slam final at Roland Garros. New ranking

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Flavio Cobolli’s breakthrough at Roland Garros produced a major ranking milestone. The 24-year-old reached his first Grand Slam semifinal and final in Paris and, despite losing the title match to Alexander Zverev in a five-set battle, climbed from No. 14 to No. 10 in the latest ATP rankings, marking his Top 10 debut.

Cobolli is the seventh Italian to enter the ATP Top 10 since the rankings began in 1973. He is also only the second Italian man in the past 50 years to contest the Roland Garros final, joining last year’s runner-up, Jannik Sinner. Born in 2002, Cobolli is the fifth man born in 2002 or later to reach the Top 10, following Carlos Alcaraz and Holger Rune, who were both born in 2003, and Lorenzo Musetti and Ben Shelton, who were both born in 2002.

The route to the final carried complicated circumstances. Cobolli advanced to the title match after countryman Matteo Arnaldi withdrew before their semifinal due to illness. Cobolli reflected on the day with mixed emotions: “When [Arnaldi] came to me almost one hour ago, I almost cried,” he said. “It’s something that you don’t expect at all. I was ready to play this match. When he came, I was completely sad for him.

“But at the same time, of course I’m really happy for the result that I reached this week. My dad also came to me right before him, and we had a big hug together with the whole team for achieving the Top 10. Every time that I make the best ranking, we all together have a big hug. We did the same routine as always.

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“Yeah, now I’m sad and happy at the same time.”

Arnaldi, 25, leaps from No. 104 to No. 34 after reaching his first Grand Slam semifinal, moving to within four spots of his 2024 career-high of No. 30. Matteo Berrettini also recorded a significant rise, moving from No. 105 to No. 48 after reaching his first Grand Slam quarterfinal since 2022 on the terre battue. For the former No. 6, it was his first appearance at Roland Garros since 2021, following four years marked by injury and illness withdrawals.

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French Open Grand Slam

Maja Chwalinska vaults to No. 21 after surprise run to Roland Garros final

Maja Chwalinska rises from No. 114 to No. 21 after reaching the Roland Garros final. into the Top 25

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The new WTA rankings produced a major leap for Maja Chwalinska, who climbs from No. 114 to No. 21 after reaching the first Grand Slam final of her career at Roland Garros. The 24-year-old from Poland achieved a sequence of breakthroughs during the clay-court major.

Her run was historically improbable. Chwalinska became the lowest-ranked woman to reach the Roland Garros final in the WTA rankings era, which dates to 1975. She was also only the second player in the Open Era, woman or man, to advance to a Grand Slam final as a qualifier, following Emma Raducanu.

Before the tournament she had never beaten a Top 50 opponent. At Roland Garros she defeated four Top 50 players en route to the title match: Elise Mertens, Maria Sakkari, Anna Kalinskaya and Diana Shnaider. The result smashed her previous career-high of No. 113 and delivered several milestone debuts — Top 100, Top 50, Top 40 and Top 30 — with her ranking finishing just shy of the Top 20.

Asked after the final about the gap in level between the elite and those outside the Top 100, she said: “I know many, many great players that are ranked outside Top 100,” she said. “You know, it’s such a thin line now. I feel like a lot of things need to click, but yeah, for sure there so many great players. Yeah, I wish them all the best. I hope that my story these last days was inspiring for them, and I’ll see them in the—let’s say—Top 50 now.”

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With few ranking points to defend until September, there is scope for further gains through the summer. Chwalinska plans a break before returning for the grass season. “I’m not going to play anything before grass, that’s before Wimbledon, that’s for sure. I definitely need some time to recharge,” she said. “Even before Roland Garros, I said that I need vacation after the tournament. So now it’s three weeks that I’m kind of like—not waiting, because I wanted to be here, but I just knew in the back of my head that I’m going for the vacation after French Open.

“Yeah, definitely need some time to recharge.”

The French Open champion, Mirra Andreeva, moves from No. 8 to No. 6, her best ranking this season and one spot shy of the career-high No. 5 she reached last year.

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