Svitolina Knocks Sabalenka Out of the WTA Finals as Her Season Ends in a Third-Set Collapse

Elina Svitolina knocked Aryna Sabalenka out of the WTA Finals on Friday, winning 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 in Indian Wells to take the last semifinal spot. It was Svitolina’s first win over Sabalenka in more than six years, and it ended the second seed’s season in the same week her collapse against Mirra Andreeva became the story of the tournament. Sabalenka will finish the year as world No. 3, behind the teenager who beat her 6-4, 6-0 two days earlier.

How did Svitolina win it?

By outlasting Sabalenka’s power and then punishing the errors that followed. Svitolina took the first set 6-3, watched Sabalenka storm back to take the second by the same score, and then broke to 3-1 in the decider before running away with the final set. She was broken to start the third and then won six straight games, closing the match on her fourth match point after one hour and 53 minutes. Sabalenka hit 35 unforced errors, Svitolina broke her serve six times, and Svitolina won six of her eight break points while hitting 21 winners of her own. “Very happy with the performance. It was not an easy match. It was a little bit of a roller coaster,” Svitolina told Sky Sports. “I played well in the first set, she stepped up the game and the third I tried to put an ‘extra’ ball over the net.”

Why does this win matter so much for Svitolina?

Because the head-to-head said it would not happen. Sabalenka had won five straight against her, including their Australian Open semifinal in January, and Svitolina’s only previous win in the rivalry came years ago. This was her second win in eight meetings, and it came with everything on the line: the winner took the last semifinal place from the group, the loser went home. Svitolina, the 2018 champion, is back in the semifinals for the first time since 2019, and she gets there having already lost once in the group, to the Andreeva who has barely dropped a game all week. She plays Wimbledon champion Linda Noskova on Saturday.

What happened after the final point?

No handshake. Svitolina kept her long-standing policy of refusing post-match handshakes with players from Russia and Belarus because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and she walked off without one. The policy is not new, and neither is the scrutiny around it, but the moment lands differently when it ends a season: Sabalenka’s tournament is over, and the image that closes it is Svitolina walking to the net alone. Svitolina said she knew from the start of the tournament that this eliminator was a possibility and had no regrets or complaints. “I’m in the semi-final and that’s amazing for me,” she said.

How bad is this ending for Sabalenka?

It is the worst possible version of a season that had already slipped away. She won the Sunshine Double in March, taking Indian Wells and Miami, and has not won a title since. She lost the Australian Open and US Open finals to Elena Rybakina, who took the No. 1 ranking from her in New York, and she arrived in Indian Wells as the favourite after Rybakina withdrew ill on the eve of the tournament. Then came the Andreeva defeat, 11 straight games lost from 4-1 up, and the self-assessment that followed it: asked what she would say to herself as her own coach, Sabalenka replied, “What a f***ing loser,” before urging herself to keep going. Rick Macci said the next day that she has lost her on-court identity, and Friday is the evidence for his verdict rather than a rebuttal of it.

What does the result do to the rankings?

It settles the race for world No. 2 and confirms the changing of the guard. Sabalenka is guaranteed to finish the season as world No. 3, with Andreeva set to end 2026 ahead of her after winning the group 3-0. Andreeva completed her round-robin sweep on Friday by beating Diana Shnaider 6-2, 6-1, winning 12 of the final 13 games and dropping only 11 games across her three matches. The 19-year-old now plays Jessica Pegula, who saved a match point against Linda Noskova to set up the other semifinal, and the two semifinal winners will decide a title that neither Sabalenka nor Coco Gauff, both eliminated in the group, will contest.

What happens next?

Saturday decides the finalists, and Sabalenka’s offseason starts with the questions she could not answer on court. She confirmed this week that her collaboration with Max Mirnyi has ended, so she goes into the break without a coach and without a title since March, and with the identity question Macci raised still unanswered. The hot-mic row that saw her apologise earlier in the week is now the least of it. Svitolina, meanwhile, plays for a second WTA Finals crown eight years after her first, against a Wimbledon champion in Noskova who has never been this far at the season-ending event. The tournament Svitolina won in 2018 is now hers to win again, and the player who was supposed to win it is already home.