It was all smiles between Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek on the shiny new court at the King Saud University in Riyadh as the world No1 and No2 popped balls back and forth over the net in their media-attended practice ahead of this year’s WTA Finals. 

Conversation, a hug at the net, and the filming of a TikTok for Sabalenka’s account followed in quick succession. So far, so civil. Things are unlikely to remain that way as the two players prepare for a winner-takes-all battle for the year-end crown in the Kingdom this week.  

Sabalenka will be the more wary of the two stars. The Belarusian was annointed World No1 just two weeks earlier in a lightly controversial ranking decision which knocked Swiatek off her long-held perch due to her non-attendance of mandatory events. With two grand slams under her belt in 2024, summit status should be assured – but memories of last year’s Finals will linger.  

Then, Swiatek swiped back the honour from Sabalenka by claiming the title at the end of the tour’s showpiece event. Were she to do so again, world No1 status would sweeten the end of a bitter period for the current second in the race. 

Cold hard ranking points may only tell the story of a sliver of a player’s season but there is scant detail that can paint a brighter picture of Swiatek’s late summer and early August. Cooling down after US Open quarter-final defeat to Jessica Pegula, the inarguably invasive backstage camera caught the player in tears, wrung dry after failing once again this season to step further than the final eight on any grand slam surface except clay. 

First the stars met at a staged practice – but the friendliness present is set to be brushed aside

Swiatek and Sabalenka have just enjoyed the highest of highs and crushing lows this season

Swiatek is impervious on the surface, and captured her fifth major on it at the French Open in June. But since then, the Polish star has faltered, at times visibly struggling with the mental aspect of her game. 

The start of 2024 was replete with triumphs: titles in Qatar, Indian Wells, Madrid and Rome bolstering her status as the world’s best. But one goal – Olympic gold on Roland-Garros’ terre battue – was pitched at a higher watermark, as Swiatek openly sought to honour her father’s appearance as part of Poland’s Olympic sculls four in 1988 with a podium-topping performance.  

When forced to content herself with bronze on a court that had witnessed so many of her successes, Swiatek was devastated. She later revealed that, heart-broken, she had spent six hours crying after losing to eventual gold medallist Zheng Qinwen. 

Missing out on her Olympic dream had added consequences. Amid an already gruelling schedule, the surface switch from grass to clay to hardcourt in quick succession is punishing for any player, especially one zipping from country to country, accrueing titles like precious gems. 

While all players must resent the rigours of the tour, few choose to speak as forthrightly as Swiatek has. Before Cinncinati, Swiatek warned that the proliferation of tournaments was ‘not going to end well’ for the players. 

Swiatek was distraught after missing out on Olympic gold on her favourite surface in Paris

Aside from the French Open, Swiatek has struggled to go deep at the grand slams this year

The 23-year-old split with her long-term coach Tomasz Wiktorowski after the US Open

‘It makes tennis less fun,’ she stressed. There has been little joy in Swiatek’s game in the months after her comments – or tennis altogether. After unravelling in New York, the 23-year-old withdrew from a slew of tournaments, citing ‘personal reasons’. 

Swiatek also split with her long-term coach, Tomasz Wiktorowski, after three years of working together, a further indication of a dam bursting inside the player, and the depth of the mental and physical burnout that have come to define the later stages of her season. 

Whether the time Swiatek has taken or the changes she has made will be enough remain to be seen. Challenging Sabalenka to end the year on a high is a formidable task, with the Belarusian arriving in Riyadh looking all but bulletproof after a remarkable second half of the season – in circumstances few could have predicted. 

After successfully defending her Australian Open title in January, Sabalenka struggled to parlay her success on hardcourt at Dubai and Indian Wells. The Miami Open – her de facto home tournament – represented the possibility of her wrestling her season back under her control. 

Instead Sabalenka was plunged into personal tragedy. Just days before the start of the tournament, the player’s ex-partner Konstantin Koltsov was found dead after falling from the balcony of a five-star hotel in the city. At the time, it was believed that Sabalenka and her boyfriend of three years were still together, and the event sent shockwaves around the tennis world. 

Sabalenka’s early season was torn open with the shock death of her late former partner Konstantin Koltsov 

The Belarusian confirmed that the pair had separated before his apparent suicide but felt the loss no less keenly

Nevertheless Sabalenka took to the court days later in Miami wearing an all-black kit

Although the 26-year-old later revealed that they had broken up before Koltsov’s apparent suicide, the loss was no less stark. Sharing a statement in the days after the tragedy, Sabalenka said that her heart was ‘broken’. But rather than stepping away from the rigours of the tour, she put her head down and continued. 

The move took its toll. Sabalenka had done the same in the wake of her father’s sudden death in 2019, immersing herself in the sport in a bid to channel her grief into hard work, but she later admitted that there had been little value in forcing herself to keep moving. 

‘At that moment I thought I had to just keep going, keep playing, keep doing my thing to separate my personal life from my career life,’ Sabalenka told the Guardian in August. 

‘But at the end I would say I was struggling a lot healthwise because I didn’t stop. It was really emotional and really stressful, and kind of damaged my mental health at that point.’ 

‘The better decision’ instead would have been to ‘step back, reset and recharge,’ she added. In the end, it was her body which made the final unspoken decision, breaking down on the eve of Wimbledon and forcing a late withdrawal.  

Sabalenka had torn her teres major muscle, an injury she described as so rare she was ‘probably the second or third tennis player to get it’. The issue was a pain when she served – the major aspect of her game Sabalenka had adjusted before her first grand slam win in 2023 – and a symbol, perhaps, of the psychological weight off-court events had placed on her performance. 

Injury forced Sabalenka into recharge mode which has a transformative impact on her season

So too has the continuing presence of her new boyfriend, entrepreneur Georgios Frangulis

Sabalenka has described him as ‘the love of her life’ and he is a constant companion as part of the player’s tight-knit camp

Finally, Sabalenka could heal. Forced away from the at-times dangerous rigours of the WTA schedule, her days were filled with rehab, spending time on the beach, learning TikTok dances. Sitting out the Olympics pushed a competitive return further out of reach in the same time that Swiatek was heaping more and more dates into her schedule. The difference has proved revelatory. 

Tune-ups in Washington and Toronto showed rust but laid the tracks for a barnstorming win in Cinncinati, where she started a searing run through the end of the American hardcourt season to be crowned US Open champion. Defeating a hometown hero in Pegula on a raucous Arthur Ashe was no mean feat, and doing so to tie up a 12-match winning streak wherein Sabalenka only dropped a single set, a positively ferocious one. 

All the while, Sabalenka was watched from her box by a new face, boyfriend Georgios Frangulis, who she describes as ‘the love of her life’. Undoubtedly a stabilising and supportive force, the Brazilian-Greek entrepreneur is a now permanent fixture in the Belarusian’s globe-trotting entourage, receiving praise from Sabalenka after both that win in New York, and the WTA1000 victory she picked up in Wuhan at the start of the month. 

With her white-hot hardcourt form, Sabalenka has been able to make Swiatek’s No1 credentials – untouchable in the wake of victory in Paris – feel like a distant memory. Not for nothing do Chinese fans of fellow WTA Finals contender and World No7 Zheng refer to her as ‘the mountain that Zheng is yet to overcome’.

Sabalenka claimed her third grand slam in New York but the majors may not be enough to bypass a resurgent Swiatek

Swiatek will be hoping the arrival of Wim Fissette gives her game the edge to end the year on a serious high

But Swiatek’s will to prove herself at the very top again is laced with potency. Add to that a new coach in the form of Wim Fissette, who has worked with a raft of champions including Naomi Osaka, Angelique Kerber, and Kim Klijsters. There is somewhat of an unknown quantity – and a dangerous one at that – about Swiatek’s touchdown in Saudi. 

Swiatek has the edge over Sabalenka in their meetings this year, with their final throwdown in the final of the Madrid Open an enduring three-set classic. But after a season that has been a study in contrasts between the two players, a last meeting in Riyadh could yet provide the yardstick by which their continuing rivalry is measured.