Big finals don’t get much tighter, or better, than Iga Swiatek and Aryna Sabalenka's melee in Madrid

Tennis matches don’t come much harder-fought, better-played, or closely-contested than Iga Swiatek’s 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 (7) win over Aryna Sabalenka in the final of the Mutua Madrid Open on Saturday.

The rivalry between these two had been building, in stop and start fashion, since their first meeting three years ago. Since 2022, each has won multiple majors, neither has dropped out of the Top 2 for long, and each has looked, at different times, as if she was going to be the tour’s player of the future. They had played nine times, and four of those matches had gone three sets. The best was last year’s final in Madrid, which Sabalenka won in three sets.

Until Sunday, though, we didn’t know just how evenly they’re matched, how hard they can push each other, or how good the tennis they produce together can be. It felt like each had a special motivation to want to win this one—Sabalenka to put a promising season back on track and put a tough couple of months behind her; Swiatek to win a tournament she had never won on her favorite surface. From the opening points, there was an extra crackle in the air in Manolo Santana Stadium, an extra snap to their shots, and an extra effort from both to stay upbeat and grab control of the points as soon as possible.

Three hours, three sets, 237 points, more than 70 winners, and innumerable grunts, screams, and “Come on!”s later, nether of them had found an edge over the other.

“I think it was the most intense, and like, crazy final I’ve played,” Swiatek said.

WATCH: Iga Swiatek takes down Aryna Sabalenka in Madrid final battle | MATCH POINT

The first two sets were each won when one player raised her game at the end.

In the first set, Swiatek pounded her backhand return, broke at 5-5 with a down-the-line backhand, and held for the set with an ace and a forehand winner. In the second set, Sabalenka responded by—what else?—swinging harder and aiming closer to the lines. With Swiatek serving at 4-5, Sabalenka swooped down with two blazing winners, one from the backhand side, one from the forehand side, to level the match.

Those two shots launched Sabalenka into the third as well. She broke with another forehand winner to go up 3-1. When Swiatek drilled her first shot of the next game into the net, her psychologist, Daria Abramowicz, stood up to urge her on. Another break and the match might be lost. Swiatek responded right away. This time it was her turn to up her pace, and her risk level.

“I felt like some [of her] decisions were pretty, you know, courageous,” Swiatek said of Sabalenka. “So at the end, I just wanted to…also be courageous.”

Serving at 5-6 in the third set, Swiatek needed all the courage she could muster to save two championship points. On the first, she put a backhand a few inches inside the baseline that Sabalenka couldn’t handle. On the second, she tore into a crosscourt forehand with no hesitation, and fired it for a winner.

A tiebreaker was the only way to decide a match this even, and this well-played. Maybe it was nerves or weariness, but neither came up with her best in the breaker—the points were won on missed returns and errors. Still, the score stayed close and the drama mounted. Swiatek leveled at 5-5 with a brilliant body serve. Sabalenka saved a match point with an ace, and earned her third match point at 7-6.

And then…Sabalenka made three straight errors. A backhand went long, a return went long, another backhand went long, and Swiatek had survived. After three hours, those three shots proved to be the difference.

Afterward, Sabalenka could only praise Swiatek.

“Probably when I broke her in the third set, I should have been more focused on my serve,” Sabalenka said. “But at the same time, it’s not like I double-faulted. It’s just she played great tennis and she broke me back.”

As for Swiatek, she said spent the first two sets wondering if she would ever loosen up and relax. When it didn’t happen early, she tried to take inspiration from Rafael Nadal’s five-set comeback win in the 2022 Australian Open final.

“I was, like, ‘Oh, my God, am I going to feel a little bit more loose soon?” Swiatek said. “It didn’t really happen, and then after two hours, it did.”

“I remember exactly when [Rafa] was playing Medvedev in Australia and it clicked for him…it felt like that. That kind of gave me hope that maybe it will click, even after two hours.”

The Pole was the winner on Saturday, but so was this rivalry, and the potential it has for the future. May the Swiatek-Sabalenka era begin.