With the WTA season long over, attention will soon turn to 2024 after a short break with many including Aryna Sabalenka playing exhibitions over Christmas.
But Martina Navratilova has run the rule over how she could improve in that time off and heading into an important 2024 season for the Belarusian who had the year of her life in 2023.
Banishing previous demons, she hoisted the Australian Open and also became World No.1 breaking the reign of the long-standing WTA queen in Iga Swiatek in the process. Albeit she will be battling now to reascend that summit going into a tournament, she is defending.
Her previous demons saw double faults and her serve being an issue but Navratilova thinks it is a different aspect of her game that the Belarusian can improve.
“At her best, Sabalenka can play you off the court with her powerful groundstrokes and serve. But I think she can still improve her movement a little bit, get quicker off the mark, find a little more explosion. She needs to focus on getting herself in position to hit those big balls -- because when she’s set, she’s deadly. So, going forward, I think she can move up to the ball quicker, get a little bit higher on the trajectory so she gets a higher point of contact with the ball," said Navratilova.
“Last year was a big one for Aryna; she really came a really long way in terms of maintaining her composure in difficult moments and the physical aspect, as well. She needs to keep that going. She’s the oldest of these three, but at 25 she’s still fairly young on the total commitment scale. It takes time to really reach your potential -- and, believe it or not, she hasn’t reached it yet.”
Ranking points of the year-end world #2 - past decade 2014: 7,050 (Sharapova) 2015: 6,060 (Halep) 2016: 7,050 (Williams) 2017: 6,135 (Muguruza) 2018: 5,875 (Kerber) 2019: 5,940 (Pliskova) 2020: 7,255 (Halep) 2021: 6,380 (Sabalenka) 2022: 5,055 (Jabeur) 2023: 9,050 (Sabalenka)
