Elina Svitolina has made it very clear she intends to be the woman to beat in 2018 after her resounding dismantling of surprise qualifier Aliaksandra Sasnovich of Belarus to win the Brisbane International tournament on January 6. The lopsided triumph with a 6-2, 6-1 score got the young Ukrainian tennis star her 10th career title – five of which came last year – at Pat Rafter Arena.
Her upset of defending champion Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic in the semifinal was enough to catapult her back up to a No. 4 ranking in the world heading into the seeding for the Australian Open. Landing the silverware in Brisbane served to boost her confidence on the way to Melbourne with her eyes fixed firmly on her maiden grand slam trophy.
The third-seeded Svitolina took advantage of the 88th ranked Sasnovich playing an eighth match in nine days and her first top-level final. Any brief resistance from the Belarusian was countered with Svitolina’s superb ball striking, wrapping up the final match in a mere 65 minutes.
After a quick 3-0 lead to start the rout Sasnovich found some range with her strong backhand, briefly attempting to make it a contest. Svitolina unleashed a backhand barrage of her own to break again, seal the first set and proceeded to run away with the second set, earning the crown with her name engraved on the Evonne Goolagong trophy.
“I want to say congrats to Aliaksandra, coming through the qualifiers is always very tough and challenging,” Svitolina said in a post-match interview. “On behalf of the players I want to say thank you because it’s always very special to play in front of this crowd, it’s amazing.”
Svitolina shined on serve in the final, never facing a break point and dropping only four points behind her serve in eight games. Two of her 10 aces, along with a service winner, came in the final game of the match.
“There is not only one serve that I’m working on. There’s lots of things,” Svitolina said after the match. “To be a good, consistent player you have to work on everything and to be confident with all parts of your game. Of course, the serve is one of them because you can get free points off that.”
She continued: “It was very important to use what I was working on during the offseason, a tough offseason, and it was working. One match at a time, I was improving in some parts. I was playing better and better and, you know, serve worked really good during this week.
“I just try to take this as one step that’s forward. If I’m there with my game, I have a good chance to play well [at the Australian Open]. I don’t have any pressure that I have to play well there. I am on the right path, and we can see that the things we’ve been working on are the right things…and we will continue on that.”
Svitolina defeated Carla Suzrez Navarro of Spain (6-2, 6-4), Ana Konjuh of Croatia (6-3, 6-1) and Johanna Konta of Great Britain (1-6, 7-6, 3-2, retired) leading into her semifinal victory over Pliskova (7-5, 7-5). The semi was a stunning turnaround after the defending champion raced out to a 4-0 lead in the first set, looking to duplicate her 2017 win. Somehow Svitolina flicked the switch, winning the next four games before holding a shocked Pliskova to love to take the set. Pliskova staged her own recovery in the second set, clawing back from 2-5 down, but couldn’t stop her opponent from wrapping up a 97-minute victory.