NEW YORK—“I feel crazy,” Aryna Sabalenka said after winning her second straight US Open, on Saturday. “I wanna laugh, I wanna scream, I wanna cry at the same time.”
Can you tell that she had been keeping a lot inside?
That’s what made the difference this time. Over the course of her 94-minute, 6-3, 7-6 (3) win over Amanda Anisimova, Sabalenka didn’t scream or cry or roll her eyes or yell at her team or otherwise lose her mind. After her loss to Coco Gauff at the Open in 2023, to Madison Keys at the Australian Open in January, and to Gauff again at Roland Garros in June, she knew that melting down is not the way to win a Grand Slam final.
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“Two finals where I completely lost control over my emotions,” she told ESPN. “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.”
That’s not to say it was easy.
“There were a few moments when I was this close to letting it go,” she said, bringing her index finger and thumb to within a millimeter of each other.
