For many years, women’s tennis has been associated with longer baseline rallies and a slight lack of variety in shots when compared to men’s tennis. Serves are not as strong, volleying not as prioritized. Even in today’s game, we have seen players like Iga Swiatek and CoCo Gauff excel playing this style of tennis. However, there has been one tennis player who has been consistently demonstrating that she can compete at the highest level while completely dominating with a different style than what we are used to: Aryna Sabalenka.

Her big game, consisting of huge groundstrokes and an even bigger serve, have paid off massively. Two grand slam titles and multiple wins over top 10 players have proven her to be an extreme threat on the hard courts. Yet her game is so much different from what we have come to expect.

This may be a nod towards the general trend in women’s tennis recently. Big servers and hitters have been making waves within the tennis world. Two of the three best players according to the rankings currently rely on their big first serve and plus ones to get the job done, them being Aryna Sabalenka and Elena Ryabkina. 

It’s not just that big hitters have been seeing success. We have started to see much more variety amongst all the players. Ons Jabeur is a great example: while she may not be known for her baseline prowess, her easy ability to change up shots, and her knifed slices and soft dropshots make up for it. 

Madison Keys, a veteran of sorts, is still ranked inside the top 20. Her game has also relied on a big serve and her huge groundstrokes – in a sense, a parallel to Serena Williams. The point still stands: an increasing amount of the best women’s tennis players are embracing a “go big or go home” style of play – an attitude that has always only really applied to men’s tennis historically.

With Sabalenka’s recent back-to-back Australian Open titles, I think that we have to start placing more focus on how women’s tennis has evolved. I think that Jabeur has a great chance at winning WImbledon this year – her game suits the surface perfectly. It is only a matter of time before we will be able to tell where women’s tennis is headed, but I think it’s time to take note of some of these big hitters and how they fare compared to the more traditional style of play.