World number one Aryna Sabalenka overcame early nerves and the added pressure of playing in front of tennis royalty as she opened her Australian Open campaign with a straight-sets win on Sunday.
Sabalenka defeated French wildcard Tiantsoa Rakotomanga Rajaonah 6–4, 6–1 on Rod Laver Arena, with legends Roger Federer and Rod Laver seated courtside for the first-round encounter.
The Belarusian admitted she felt the weight of the occasion, joking afterwards that she tried her best not to glance towards the front row. “I wanted to show great tennis so you guys enjoy watching me play,” Sabalenka said. “What a privilege. I really hope you enjoyed it, even just a little bit.”
She added: “It was a lot of pressure. I was walking around thinking, ‘don’t look there, don’t look there’.”
Sabalenka, a two-time Australian Open champion, later marked the moment by taking a selfie with Federer and Laver after the match.
Despite her comfortable scoreline, the top seed was made to work early on. An uncharacteristically untidy opening set saw Sabalenka broken in the first game, with her 16 winners almost matched by 13 unforced errors. Rakotomanga Rajaonah, ranked 118 in the world, matched Sabalenka’s intensity and asked questions from the baseline.
After saving a break point at 4–4, Sabalenka found her rhythm and authority, reeling off five consecutive games to swing the match decisively in her favour.
“I didn’t start my best,” Sabalenka said. “She came out playing really well and put me under pressure.”
Sabalenka boasts an outstanding record in Melbourne, having dropped just one set during her title runs in 2023 and 2024. She has lost only once in her past 22 matches at the Australian Open, a three-set defeat to Madison Keys in last year’s final.
Her strong form has extended beyond Melbourne, with five of her 22 career singles titles coming on Australian soil, including victory at the Brisbane International earlier this month.
Bidding to reach a fourth consecutive Australian Open final, Sabalenka will face either Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova or Bai Zhuoxuan in the second round, with Britain’s Emma Raducanu a potential third-round opponent.
Elsewhere on the women’s draw, Italian seventh seed Jasmine Paolini cruised past Aliaksandra Sasnovich 6–1, 6–2, while Elina Svitolina advanced with a straight-sets win over Cristina Bucsa.
However, it proved a difficult day for several seeded players. Russian 11th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova was knocked out by Turkey’s Zeynep Sonmez, while Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk and Dayana Yastremska also suffered early exits.
