If there were any doubts about the 2024 clique in the elite of women’s tennis, Iga Swiatek, Aryna Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina have erased them over the last three weeks.
It’s been a few days since Swiatek and Sabalenka produced one of the greatest matches in this sport on Saturday evening, in the final of the Madrid Open.
Swiatek’s 9-7 third-set tiebreak triumph left the world number 1 flat on her back on the red clay of the Caja Magica. That left Sabalenka, the world number 2, slumped in her chair, a towel over her head and face, the very recent memory of three championship points running through her mind.
She hadn’t lost them. Swiatek had taken them from him mercilessly.
It was two days after Sabalenka toppled Rybakina in a semifinal duel, in another third-set tiebreak that required 12 points for the Belarusian to complete her brutal comeback, 1-6, 7-5, 7-6 (5). And that was two weeks after Rybakina knocked out Swiatek in a semifinal in Stuttgart that also went to three sets — at a tournament Swiatek has owned for two years.
These women are thisclose right now, and they know it. In such rivalries, wobbly measurables, like who hits the more powerful forehand or who finishes with a higher percentage of points at the net, don’t determine who wins and who loses as much as intangibles do. It’s about who can execute the best shots on the biggest spots and, as of late, all three have done so. In 2024, the top of women’s tennis is tighter than ever.
GO FURTHER
Top women tennis players say the sport is broken. That is why
“It was more about who will be less stressed and who will be able to play with more freedom,” Swiatek said in the aftermath of Saturday’s chaos.
“For most of the match, she played more, like, I felt like some of the decisions were pretty… how can I say it… like, brave. I was sometimes, you know, a little behind. So in the end, I just wanted to not do that and also be brave.
It was that rare and special tennis where both players were playing at their peak at the same time, for extended periods, with a title on the line. Soon after the initial disappointment, Sabalenka knew what everyone in the audience was doing: that she had played as good a match as she could, that almost every point was a draw, that she had been in one of the greatest matches. women’s final of all time.
“She just played a little better in those key moments,” Sabalenka said. “That’s it.”
Men’s tennis has seen nearly 20 years of three-guy victories – Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, with Andy Murray making it a four-way battle for part of the 2010s.
If she can figure out her serve, Coco Gauff could crush the current three-way battle at the top before long. She is currently world number 3, one place ahead of Rybakina, but has failed to reach the heights of that trio consistently since winning the US Open by beating Sabalenka last September; in 2024, the other three will have surpassed it.
It’s been a long time since women’s tennis has seen something like this.
Serena Williams has had worthy opponents over the years and at times – her sister Venus, Justine Henin, Kim Clijsters, Victoria Azarenka – but a supported troika at the top has never really evolved. Since 2017, 18 different women have won 24 Grand Slam titles. The repeat champions – Simona Halep, Naomi Osaka, Ashleigh Barty and Swiatek – have never faced the same opponent twice in a Grand Slam final.
Swiatek, Rybakina and Sabalenka are also waiting for him. The only time the two of them met in the final was at the Australian Open last year, with Sabalenka beating Rybakina, again in three sets, in arguably the women’s final of the highest quality we’ve seen before Saturday in the Spanish capital.
Maybe that’s about to change. Judging by what happened Saturday and what has happened for most of the last two years, there’s a good chance that’s the case.
“We push ourselves,” Rybakina said after her loss to Sabalenka, a match in which she was on the forehand in front of the court, far from locking it out. “We push each other to get better.”
This dynamic will be familiar to fans of that Big Three/Four era in men’s soccer, which morphed into what tennis writer Matthew Willis accurately invented an ouroboros, each encounter between them, and the different stylistic and psychological battles that take place there, taking the actors involved to higher and higher heights, further and further removed from the rest of the field.
All this could last 10 minutes, or even 10 years. Sabalenka, originally from Belarus but living largely in the US city of Miami, Florida, turned 26 on Sunday; Rybakina, Russian by birth, Kazakh by nationality, is 24 years old; Swiatek, the first true Polish great, is 22 years old. (Gauff is 20 years old and getting better every year.)
Injuries, the tension of a relentless schedule, a new generation of young talents, Osaka back in shape… many factors could very quickly make this triangular rivalry obsolete. It may not even fully develop, with Swiatek having moved ahead in the rankings and titles, collecting 18 over a three-year period in which Sabalenka has four and Rybakina six.
GO FURTHER
Iga Swiatek’s 100 weeks as world number 1: the streak, the slams, the bagels
But for now, there’s something compelling about the dynamic between these three athletes, all of whom bring something different to the field on the surface, but who also subtly carry many of each other’s strengths.
Sabalenka is blessed with raw strength and unmatched intensity, but also a rapidly improving net game and the ability to drag a game that she shares with Swiatek.
Swiatek crosses the court and through games with this frightening efficiency, displaying an innate versatility that others are still trying to acquire – but her prodigious topspin belies the speed and force of the groundstrokes usually attributed to Sabalenka.
Rybakina’s elegant, effortless power and sometimes wispy touch make her glassy-eyed calm seem less titanic than Swiatek’s concentration, but in reality, like her tactical acumen, it is just as still.
Where all this will go over the next few weeks is anyone’s guess, as the tour moves to Rome and then Paris for the last and biggest clay-court events of the year, then onto the grass at Wimbledon.
Madrid, where the harder ground and the altitude make the ball fly, thought to favor Sabalenka and Rybakina, who are powerful players, over Swiatek, but she remains queen of clay. That made the title a key triumph for the Pole – the only major clay-court event she had ever won.
Tennis is now moving to the slower, more traditional clay courts at the Italian Open and French Open, which she favors. She won Roland Garros three times in four years. This could cause trouble for his enemies.
Again, Rybakina is the reigning champion in Rome. Her stunning victory came against Serena Williams in Paris in 2021; Sabalenka was a point away from the French Open final last year before tightening up in the crucial moments. She doesn’t do that very often anymore.
After clay, comes grass. Swiatek is still apparently a novice and is the first to say so. She said that at some point in her career she will spend more time getting to grips with her speed and low bounce, but she hasn’t yet.
Rybakina won Wimbledon in 2022. Sabalenka lost a semifinal lead there last year. Its power is enormous to handle anywhere. On grass, it can overflow.
Then return to Paris and Roland Garros for the Olympics, then to the hard courts of North America, which should favor Sabalenka, double reigning hard court champion at the Australian Open and finalist at the US Open. last year… but Swiatek is the only one of the three to have won at Flushing Meadows, in 2022.
Swiatek, Rybakina and Sabalenka are often asked about this second subject of the Big Three these days. Usually they try to ignore it. These other Big Three have won 66 Grand Slams and may not be done yet. They are at seven o’clock. There’s a long way to go, but that’s where they hope this will all lead.
“I’m really happy to be part of these big three,” Sabalenka said Saturday night, as she came in second and tried to grasp a glimmer of hope.
“It really motivates me a lot to keep working and getting better just to stay there and then kind of, you know, just be there and get as many wins against them as I can.”
(Top photos: Daniel Pockett; Quality Sports Images; Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)