Winning a Grand Slam singles title is hard. Only 15 currently active Hologic WTA Tour players have managed it.
Collecting back-to-back major titles is very, very difficult. Only eight different players have done it since the turn of the century.
Three in a row? Nearly impossible.
Justine Henin owned Roland Garros from 2005-07, just as Iga Swiatek -- contemplating her fourth straight French Open championship this spring -- does today. Serena Williams dominated the US Open from 2012-14.
Australian Open: Scores | Schedule | Draws
As this Australian winds down to a single match, No.1-ranked Aryna Sabalenka is trying to join these legendary players as the only four women to three-peat at a Grand Slam this century -- and the first at the Australian Open.
Only five women in the Open Era have done it Down Under: Margaret Court (1969-71), Evonne Goolagong Cawley (1974-76), Steffi Graf (1988-90), Monica Seles (1991-93) and Martina Hingis (1997-99).
Sabalenka has now won 20 straight matches in Melbourne. Only Madison Keys can prevent her from making it 21 in the Saturday final -- 7:30 p.m. local time, 3:30 am ET.
Is Sabalenka starting to believe it might happen, that she belongs on that short list of Hall of Fame names?
“It’s a big question,” Sabalenka said earlier this week. “I’m really happy that I put myself in this situation where I have opportunity to become one of them.
“Of course, it's always been in the back of my mind that I can do that.”
A champion could become a legend on Saturday night.
— #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) January 23, 2025
An #AusOpen three-peat would place @SabalenkaA in rare company.#AO2025 pic.twitter.com/saJPueTpRz
Of course. These fast courts, baked by the Australian summer swelter, are the perfect environment for Sabalenka’s powerful, aggressive, relentless game. She’s a sparkling 28-5 at the Australian Open, her best winning percentage (.848) in a major.
The way Sabalenka’s been playing to start the season (she’s 11-0) and with a head-to-head record of 4-1 over Keys it might seem inevitable. But Melbourne hasn’t seen a three-peat since 1999, when 18-year-old Hingis defeated Amelie Mauresmo in straight sets. That was the year of transition when Graf won the last of her 22 major titles in Paris -- and Williams won the first of 23 at the US Open.
The world was a very different place. Social media was in its infancy, climate change was discussed only among a small group of scientists, and cryptocurrency had a decade before moving out of the conceptual phase. Sabalenka hadn’t celebrated her first birthday and Swiatek was a few years from coming into existence. Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic had yet to win any of their 66 Grand Slam titles.
Like many professional athletes, Sabalenka likes to talk about the journey, being the best she can be, but when confronted with the direct question she didn’t flinch.
Coming off a title performance in Brisbane, Sabalenka was asked how badly she wanted to win a third straight Australian Open.
“Pretty badly,” was her answer.
“I mean, it’s a Grand Slam, you know? Doesn’t matter how many times you won it before. You want to hold that beautiful trophy. Yeah, you want to get another Slam in your pocket, so I want it badly and I’m really hungry for that.”
Many moving parts
So many things can go wrong in the course of a fortnight.
Case in point, Sabalenka’s quarterfinal match against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. Sabalenka lost the second set and then saw her usually impeccable serve broken in the first and third games of the third. The windy conditions in Rod Laver Arena made life difficult for both players.
“I was all over the place,” Sabalenka said later. “I’m really glad that at some point I was able to put myself back together. I was able to keep fighting, keep trying, and I was able to turn around this match.”
The final was 6-2, 2-6, 6-3 and it was a reminder of how tenuous achieving a single victory can be. The conditions might not agree with you, or perhaps the opponent’s strengths play directly to your weaknesses. Anyone can have a bad day, or a few hours of low-energy output. Off-the-court issues -- simple travel logistics, coaching conflicts, financial and rankings implications -- can crowd into your consciousness, ratcheting up the degree of difficulty.
Now multiply that by the seven matches you need to win -- and again by three back-to-back tournaments.
Like we said, nearly impossible.
In the National Football League, there hasn’t been a three-peat in the more than half-century of the Super Bowl era -- but something the Kansas City Chiefs might have within their grasp this season. The last team to win three straight titles in the National Hockey League was the New York Islanders, whose fourth came in 1983. The only National Basketball Association team to three-peat this century was the Los Angeles Lakers in 2002. The New York Yankees were the last team to win the World Series three times in a row, in 2000.
A quick accounting of the recent near misses at the Happy Slam:
- Serena Williams won titles in 2009 and 2010, but did not play in 2011 due to injury. She was champion in 2007, which means that Jelena Jankovic’s 6-3, 6-4 victory in the 2008 quarterfinals might have prevented a run of four straight.
- Victoria Azarenka was the champion in 2012 and 2013, but missed both opportunities for a three-peat, losing to eventual finalist Li Na 6-3, 6-3 in the 2011 Round of 16 and to Agnieszka Radwanska, 1-6, 7-5, 0-6, in the 2014 quarterfinals.
- Naomi Osaka won her first Australian Open title in 2019 and her second two years later. In between, she lost a third-round match to 15-year-old Coco Gauff -- ranked No.67 -- 6-3, 6-4.
Let’s talk later
Sabalenka has been answering three-peat questions for the better part of two weeks now. Swiatek, when asked how her three French Open title runs were different, said the second one -- defending 2000 rankings points from the year before -- was the most stressful.
Sabalenka said she tries not to think about it.
“I think the biggest lesson I learned last year is just not focusing on defending title or having the opportunity to put your name on the history,” she told reporters. “I think the key is just to keep focusing on yourself.
“But I don’t know. Let’s talk about that after I finish the tournament, hopefully with a three-peat, then I can tell you which one was the toughest one.”
Sabalenka is the first woman to win 20 consecutive matches at the Australian Open since Hingis won 27. Lindsay Davenport ended the streak in the 2000 final. Remarkably, after winning those three straight titles, Hingis got to the next three finals as well, losing the last two to Jennifer Capriati.
Moving up that win-rate leaderboard 📈@SabalenkaA | #AO2025 pic.twitter.com/lSyejb3sO2
— wta (@WTA) January 23, 2025
Sabalenka has been lethal on hard courts, winning 20 straight matches, including last year’s US Open. With a victory on Saturday, Sabalenka will have won four of the past eight majors she’s played; she elected to skip Wimbledon last year for scheduling reasons.
For all Sabalenka’s physical abilities, the final could well come down to mentality.
“I think I’m managing my emotions much better,” the 26-year-old Sabalenka said. Even if I get frustrated on the court, I’m able to bring myself back on court and shift my focus to the right direction.”
After beating Paula Badosa in the semifinals, Sabalenka said, “I have chance to put my name next to the legends. I mean, I couldn’t even dream about that.”
Sabalenka finds herself on the cusp of joining that select Hall of Fame company. Is she about to become a legend in real time? History beckons.