Sunday on the BNP Paribas Open, Aryna Sabalenka wore a placid smile to her information convention, serenity personified in a baby-pink high after crusing to a third-round victory over Jaqueline Cristian.
A reporter requested her about her subsequent match, and what it is likely to be like to face fellow four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka once more. Sabalenka and Osaka have solely squared off as soon as earlier than, within the fourth spherical of the 2018 U.S. Open that Osaka would go on to win.
Sabalenka’s smile widened. Her eyes floated up and to the left.
“Well,” she mentioned, “It will sure be a fashion show at the beginning. Then a crazy match.”
There was no shade in Sabalenka’s remark about her fellow vogue lover, solely fact. The prospect of lastly watching one other match between two of probably the most fascinating gamers of the previous decade is thrilling — however solely partly due to the tennis.
The match is rife with subplots. In a sport continually thirsting for substantial rivalries, right here, within the desert, floats a pairing as tantalizing and unreal as a mirage. It cuts throughout vogue, sports activities enterprise and cultural resonance, a showcase of two gamers who’ve taken their very own paths towards stardom and met their very own obstacles alongside the best way.
As a spectacle, Sabalenka vs. Osaka is as thought-provoking for what it says about tennis followers’ values as it’s competitively attractive.
On paper, the bout seems lopsided. Sabalenka is working at her full energy, having adopted her 2025 U.S. Open title with a run to the ultimate of the Australian Open this January. She is world No. 1.
Osaka, ranked No. 16, will all the time be thought to be a critical menace, thanks to her ball-striking and championship resumé. But she got here by means of an uneven third-round match in opposition to No. 61 Camila Osorio on Sunday in three units, and since her most up-to-date return to tennis in 2024, she has a 2-8 document in opposition to top-10 gamers.
Both are spoiling for the struggle. For Osaka, enjoying Sabalenka is precisely the large match she lives for.
“For me, they’re the most fun,” she mentioned Sunday throughout an interview with Tennis Channel.
“When I was younger, I used to only show up for big matches like this. This is what I practice for. I’m just really excited to see what I can do.”
For Sabalenka, there’s deferred revenge at stake, after Osaka’s dramatic three-set victory almost eight years in the past that despatched her to her first Grand Slam quarterfinal. The match was a preview of fireworks to come for each gamers, taut with suspense and full of winners.
Sabalenka held serve from 0-40 twice within the remaining set, and then saved three match factors within the remaining sport, earlier than finally double-faulting on match level.
“I would like to play her,” Sabalenka mentioned of their coming rematch, with a Cheshire-cat grin.
Naomi Osaka beat Aryna Sabalenka of their solely earlier aggressive assembly, on the 2018 U.S. Open. (Tim Clayton / Corbis through Getty Images)
The win proved a breakthrough second in Osaka’s profession, placing the then-20-year-old on observe to win her first Grand Slam. Sabalenka wouldn’t win her first main title till 2023; by then, Osaka had received her fourth.
Since then, their fortunes on the court docket have reversed, with Sabalenka successful three titles to Osaka’s zero, however probably the most compelling narrative round Tuesday’s match will probably be its which means for tennis’ consideration financial system.
Osaka, who has remained one of many largest sports activities stars on the planet even when away from the court docket, has constructed her cultural resonance by strolling a well-trod path — one accessible to solely probably the most elite tier of transcendent athletes.
She established a basis of partnerships with huge manufacturers, and then broke away from her company, IMG, to take extra inventive management. In 2022, she began her personal company, Evolve, together with her agent Stuart Duguid. They additionally based a manufacturing firm.
The company was initially offered as if Osaka had fairness as a co-founder, however this was not the case, she mentioned, throughout an interview with Bounces after she departed Evolve final December to return to IMG. Duguid declined to touch upon the break up.
The most up-to-date instance of Osaka’s cultural world-building within the second act of her profession is her tennis vogue. Reaction to her jellyfish-inspired walk-on outfit at the Australian Open, which she designed with Robert Wun, a London-based couturier from Hong Kong, dominated the match’s information cycle for days.
At the BNP Paribas Open, she debuted a Nike leopard-print gown with gold ear cuffs, facial jewellery and clawed gloves, designed with Filipino-American designer Chris Habana.
Sabalenka, who has taken a extra grassroots strategy to relevance in her climb up the rankings with TikTok dances and courtside bits together with her coaches, expressed a half-joking displeasure together with her lack of customized kits from Nike eventually 12 months’s WTA Tour Finals.
But whereas Nike designed Osaka’s gown for this match, and on the Australian Open, the Wun outfit was an Osaka manufacturing, absolutely funded by her, as reported by Hard Court.
“It’s one of the most fun things I can do,” Osaka mentioned in a information convention of designing her kits.
“It’s a way to express yourself, it’s a story that I want to convey.”
In January 2025, Sabalenka took the same step to Osaka seeking autonomy, leaving IMG to be a part of Evolve partly, she mentioned, as a result of IMG wasn’t assembly her expectations.
The Belarusian was pissed off on the disparity between her on-court success — by then she’d won three Grand Slam trophies — and a sponsorship portfolio that lacked the kind of opulent manufacturers high tennis gamers usually entice.
In an announcement, a spokesperson for IMG described their break up as mutual.
A 12 months later, Sabalenka has spent extra time within the highlight thanks to a a lot publicized, and criticized, “Battle of the Sexes” stunt with fellow Evolve shopper Nick Kyrgios. On the luxurious model entrance, Gucci and Emirates Airlines introduced her as a model ambassador in January.
Osaka and Sabalenka function reminders that stardom in sports activities isn’t all the time about who wins probably the most; celeb is a fickle system. Osaka, the pioneering introvert, is an icon. Sabalenka, the world-beating extrovert, all the time appears to be striving. The obvious paradox has nothing to do with their good tennis; it has all the things to do with these of us watching the present.
And with Sabalenka’s and Osaka’s resumés, instincts, enjoying types and forces of will, it’s irresistible to think about what might need been had they battled one another extra usually. Or much more than as soon as. Come Tuesday, tennis followers will think about not.
Osaka nicely remembers what the match might be.
“I do remember it just because I felt like in that tournament, that was the hardest match for me,” she mentioned.
“And I remember thinking, like, we’re both going to get very far.”
