How the Rybakina revival proves women’s tennis is stronger than ever

Join the Miguel Delaney Inside Football Join the Miguel Delaney Inside newsletter to get exclusive access and unparalleled insight. Football Join the Miguel Delaney Inside newsletter Football Aryna Sablalenka and Elena Rybakina met in the finals of the first major tournament of the year almost three years ago. At the time many thought this was the start of a new era in women’s tennis, a kind of ‘Big Three’ Three of the best ball strikers in the world were involved, including the pair mentioned and Iga Swieatek. It wasn’t quite to be: Sabalenka fought back from a set down to win her first grand slam title and has since won another three to wrestle top spot off Swiatek. After the high of the 2022 Wimbledon final for Rybakina she slid down the top 10, briefly dropped out, and never really challenged the same level. Several twists and turns later Rybakina is back at the top of the sport, but the landscape of women’s tennis has shifted in that time. Almost three years on from that moment – something of a damp squib, a false dawn – women’s tennis has shaken itself out and, it seems, finally established a defining hierarchy, just in time for the 2026 season.And the big-hitting Kazakh is part of that. Her resurgence was quintessentially Rybakina: no fuss, no fanfare. Just a perfectly-timed run of late-season form that propelled her to the largest payday in WTA’s history. She celebrated it with a trademark smile and gentle fist-pump. The moment was not overshadowed by her refusal of Portia Archer, WTA’s chief executive to pose for pictures. Rybakina’s revival leaves the sport in a fascinating place as the calendar flips to 2026. In some ways 2025 feels like a prequel to next year’s main event, the major players manoeuvring themselves into position, battle lines being drawn, ahead of a grand showdown.The players in the game are all there. Aryna Sabalenka, who seems to be at her best after a setback, has had multiple this year: agonising defeats in two slam finals and another in Riyadh, indicating there is still more to be done in her ongoing quest to mould herself into the most flawless, impenetrable ball-basher of all time.open image in galleryAryna Sabalenka remains world No 1 by a large margin but has suffered some brutal losses this year (Getty Images for WTA)Amanda Anisimova, still with the same devastatingly beautiful game that was identified when she was a teenage prodigy, but now with improved mental resilience and confidence in her own ability to match – and seemingly all the better for her nightmare loss in the Wimbledon final. Coco Gauff is still working on her serve and forehand, but has won a second Grand Slam title this year to back up her previous teenage brilliance. She looks set to remain. Swiatek has also rediscovered her love of tennis with her recent run to Wimbledon, which was on her weakest surface. In the past two decades, the four grand-slams were won by four different women. (Including seven years in row between 2017 and 2023 despite 2020 featuring only three slams due to Covid-19). The same thing happened in 2025. But this year, it felt different. The four biggest titles were won by four of the most prominent names in sport. They will all finish the year among the top eight and three of them in the top three. Rybakina won the 5th-largest title (and biggest payout) of the year. In each major, the eventual finalists had to see off their biggest rivals to get there; in some, notably Anisimova’s rollercoaster three-set win over Sabalenka at Wimbledon, those blockbuster semi-finals proved more exciting than the final itself. open image in galleryAmanda Anisimova recovered from her heavy loss to Iga Swiatek in the Wimbledon showpiece and now leads their head-to-head 2-1 (Getty Images for WTA)Women’s tennis in the last decade has suffered from a lack of consistent rivalries and storylines. Part of the clamour around the 2023 Rybakina-Sabalenka final in Melbourne was to do with the excitement of finally having – or seeming to have – a potential long-term rivalry, two players who were so obviously brilliant, who could establish themselves at the top of the sport. It’s taken a little longer than expected, but it now seems those rivalries are there, supplemented by another cluster of players known for their consistency at the highest level (Jessica Pegula) and their potential (Madison Keys, Mirra Andreeva). That puts women’s tennis in a ‘best of both worlds’ scenario: having multiple top players competing for major honours makes the sport both comparatively unpredictable – in terms of who will actually win – and also reliable, in terms of who will get to the business end of tournaments. Women’s tennis in the immediate post-Serena era was neither; men’s tennis over the last two and a half decades has been both, albeit across two very distinct eons. After Serena, there was a feeling of drift. Few mega-stars were able to break through simply by being a part of the established top two or 3. Ash Barty’s retirement meant that the merry go round of major tournament winners continued, but there was never a guarantee for a blockbuster finale. The unpredictability of tennis made it entertaining but also gave critics a reason to point out a lack in quality. Nobody believes any player can challenge their hegemony, and no one else does either. This year’s US Open was marked by complaints that the first 12 days of the men’s tournament were essentially pointless: everyone knew who was going to be in the final. Women’s tennis, by contrast, now has a rotation of stars defined as much by their self-belief as by their talent, who are repeatedly facing off against each other for the biggest honours. A wide-open field at the start of a major means there is drama from the start, not just in the final weekend; that jeopardy gives the entire tournament a sense of purpose missing from the men’s side. It helps to have a sense of rivalry and clashing personalities. So Rybakina’s win over Sabalenka in Riyadh may not have been the most expected result (although given her 10-match win streak going into it, minus a walkover in Tokyo, it probably should have been) but it encapsulated the narrative of the entire year – and provided the perfect cliffhanger. Roll on the next season.
2025-11-12 14:33:27