Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus won her first Grand Slam singles title by defeating Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan 2-1 (4-6, 6-3 and 6-4) in the Australian Open women's singles final at Melbourne Park on Saturday.

Both reached the Australian Open singles final for the first time this year. Rybakina won her first Grand Slam title in the Wimbledon in 2022. Sabalenka has two women's doubles championships, one in the U.S. Open in 2019 and the other in the Australian Open in 2021. She won both by pairing with Elise Mertens of Belgium.

Both Sabalenka and Rybakina have excellent serves, but they have very different styles of playing. Sabalenka is more aggressive and built her attacks on high risk moves. She served 17 aces in Saturday's match, but also had seven double faults, five of which happened in the first set.

By contrast, Rybakina prefers to build solid defense first and then search for opportunities during the rally. In the final game of the third set, she managed to save three championship points. However, Rybkina could serve in a sharp way when she had to. She won the first set with a love game and sealed it with a serve.

Though Sabalenka lost the first set, her form kept growing better in serving and committed only two double faults in the second and third sets. She soon established an early 4-1 lead in the second set. Though Rybakina managed to hold the two following serves of hers, Sabalenka finished the competition of this set with two aces in the ninth game and tied the match 1-1.

The third set reached 3-3 after six games. Sabalenka had the chance of breaking Rybakina's third serve, but failed to do so after playing three deuces. Then in the seventh game, Sabalenka again had three break points. Though Rybakina managed to save two of them, Sabalenka won this game to lead 4-3. Then she held her own serve with an ace to extend the separation to 5-3.

The 10th game lasted over six minutes. In the end, Sabalinka held her fifth serve to win this 148-minute-long match.