"I want to dominate the tour like they did": Aryna Sabalenka expresses desire to dominate women's tennis Serena Williams, Iga Swiatek

World number one Aryna Sabalenka has expressed her desire to dominate women’s tennis like America’s Serena Williams and her fiercest rival Poland’s Iga Swiatek. The 26-year-old is currently taking part in the WTA Finals in Riyadh where top eight players are participating in women’s tennis to secure the ultimate prize.

World number one Swiatek has recently spoken to Arab News where she talked about her objectives. The Minsk-born star expressed her desire to dominate women’s tennis like the former world number one America’s Willams and her close rival Swiatek.

“I always wanted to dominate the tour like Serena [Williams] did, like Iga was able to do for so long,” she said. “And she’s still close, it’s all going to be decided after this tournament, so who knows?. But it’s really inspiring and of course I want to dominate the tour like they did. But I’m trying to focus on myself, on improving myself, to make sure that I have all of the tools to dominate the tour as they did.”

Swiatek became the world number one after an impressive last few months where she lifted the US Open title after beating America’s Jessica Pegula in the final in straight sets with a score of 7-5, 7-5. She then went on to lift the Wuhan Open as well which was enough to overthrow Swiatek from the top of the WTA rankings who did not participate in any event after the US Open. Talking about her rivalry with the current world number two, Swiatek not only praised the Polish tennis star but also believes that having such a rivalry is ‘great’ in tennis.

“I think first of all it’s really great that we have this rivalry,” she said. “It’s really competitive and I really love it because this is something that forces us to improve and forces us to get better every day and what motivates us to keep working, keep trying to find something else, to keep improving yourself, mentally, physically. That’s great, I love it. That’s what sport is all about. It would be so boring and not interesting to watch for people and for us to play if it wouldn’t be that tight.”