{"id":94159,"date":"2025-12-15T08:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T13:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=94159"},"modified":"2025-12-08T13:03:01","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T18:03:01","slug":"tiebreak-queens-struggled-to-break-down-opponents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2025\/12\/15\/tiebreak-queens-struggled-to-break-down-opponents\/","title":{"rendered":"Tiebreak Queens: Who Struggled to Break Down Opponents?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you wondered which tennis players struggled to win matches decisively, you&#8217;re in luck. We present to you the top women who weren&#8217;t able to dominate opponents as often as they&#8217;d like, so they had to resort to winning sets through tiebreaks.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a flawed stat but a fun one, so let&#8217;s break it down. Some of the names on this list might genuinely surprise you.<\/p>\n<h2><b>1. Aryna Sabalenka (22)<\/b><\/h2>\n<p>It might seem crazy that Sabalenka is number one, but she is, and by far. Twenty-two tiebreak sets this year puts her well ahead of everyone else on Tour.<\/p>\n<p>It seems implausible for such an aggressive player, but at times she ran into issues closing out sets. Maybe the opposition raised their level. Maybe her own consistency wavered. Either way, the result was a pretty high number of tiebreaks for someone who usually just overpowers opponents into submission.<\/p>\n<h2><b>2. Linda Noskova (16)<\/b><\/h2>\n<p>Noskova is a really tough out who tends to play even the elite players quite close, so her being number two on this list isn&#8217;t a massive surprise. She&#8217;s a very talented young player who still has ways to go, but even now she&#8217;s proven to be one of the biggest competitors on tour.<\/p>\n<p>When you&#8217;re pushing top players to tiebreaks regularly, that&#8217;s a sign of things to come. Sixteen of them in a season shows she belongs at this level.<\/p>\n<h2><b>3. Elena Rybakina (14)<\/b><\/h2>\n<p>It shouldn&#8217;t come as a massive surprise that Rybakina is number three because some of her matches can be quite close. In fact, if she&#8217;s not crushing opponents, then most of her matches <i>are<\/i> quite close.<\/p>\n<p>Fourteen tiebreaks don&#8217;t even look that high compared to the type of elite opposition she faced often this year. When you&#8217;re playing at the top of the Tour week in and week out, tight sets are just part of the deal.<\/p>\n<p><a  id=\"OrhQnNCYQThD9xNkHLXohA\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2245564948\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'OrhQnNCYQThD9xNkHLXohA',sig:'z4hV93qLTMR4buEwcRcicAyyfHo5xBIcFez08MUmY9k=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2245564948',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<h2><b>4. Clara Tauson (13)<\/b><\/h2>\n<p>Another player who fits a similar prototype to Rybakina is Tauson. She either cruises in her matches or struggles mightily, and when it&#8217;s the latter, quite a few of them tend to end up really close.<\/p>\n<p>Thirteen tiebreaks tells you that the inconsistency is real. When she&#8217;s on, she dominates. When she&#8217;s not, everything becomes a battle, and tiebreaks are the only way through.<\/p>\n<h2><b>5. Diana Shnaider (12)<\/b><\/h2>\n<p>Shnaider being on the list is a bit of a surprise because she tends to be a hyper-aggressive player who wants to finish points quickly. Even so, she&#8217;s not quite there yet with her level.<\/p>\n<p>Her hyper-aggressive style also tends to keep the opposition in play through much of the match, mostly with errors. When you&#8217;re going for everything, you&#8217;re either blowing opponents off the court or keeping sets tight. Twelve tiebreaks suggests plenty of the latter.<\/p>\n<h2><b>6. Sofia Kenin (12)<\/b><\/h2>\n<p>Kenin being on this list is not a massive surprise. She&#8217;s become a rather grinding player, far from <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2020\/12\/09\/sofia-kenin-wta-player-of-the-year\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">her Grand Slam winning days<\/a>. Kenin did play well overall this year, but she evolved into someone who has to fight for every set and every point.<\/p>\n<p>That transformation makes this number rather realistic. When you&#8217;re no longer dominating but still winning, tiebreaks become your best friend.<\/p>\n<p><a  id=\"lu8I2zZVQ79467t0EHShag\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2242594632\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'lu8I2zZVQ79467t0EHShag',sig:'T6Ufj5pG1rPr2egW92pE7kkAi-6XDBLLZQhsFfPleQo=',w:'594px',h:'349px',items:'2242594632',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<h2><b>7. Anna Kalinskaya (11)<\/b><\/h2>\n<p>Kalinskaya is another player who is very streaky. On her best days, she cruises. If not, she has to grind out wins. With her level being so volatile, quite a few matches end up incredibly close, requiring tiebreaks to seal the deal.<\/p>\n<p>Eleven of them in a season is just the natural result of that boom-or-bust approach. Consistency would lower the number, but it would also probably make her less dangerous on her best days.<\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<h2><b>8. Dayana Yastremska (11)<\/b><\/h2>\n<p>Another player with the same dynamic as Kalinskaya is Yastremska. She&#8217;s very up and down, and that volatility somehow always works itself into tiebreaks where she has to grind out wins.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not the cleanest way to win matches, but it gets the job done. Eleven tiebreak sets means eleven sets that could have gone either way but didn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<h2><b>9. Hailey Baptiste (10)<\/b><\/h2>\n<p>Baptiste is another player who plays a very specific way. She has a strong serve and tends to keep points quite short, but she struggles to break often. Quite a few of her matches go down to the wire, with her having to salvage wins through tiebreaks.<\/p>\n<p>Ten of them this year shows that the formula works often enough, even if it makes for some stressful moments along the way.<\/p>\n<h2><b>10. Naomi Osaka (10)<\/b><\/h2>\n<p>Naomi Osaka also makes this list because she tends to suffer from inconsistency, despite the improvement this year. That inconsistency often has to be countered through closely fought tiebreaks.<\/p>\n<p>When you&#8217;re capable of elite tennis but can&#8217;t always access it, sets stay competitive. Ten tiebreaks is just what happens when you&#8217;re fighting your way back to the top rather than dominating from there.<\/p>\n<h2><b>Comparison to ATP<\/b><\/h2>\n<p>When <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2025\/12\/15\/tiebreak-kings-fought-hard-wins\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">compared to the ATP<\/a>, we see that women&#8217;s tennis generally features much fewer tiebreaks, which isn&#8217;t a massive surprise. The ATP tends to feature closer matches because the margins of victory are somewhat smaller.<\/p>\n<p>Service holds are more reliable on the men&#8217;s side, which naturally yields more sets that stay on serve and get decided through tiebreaks. In the WTA, breaks happen more frequently, which means sets get decided before reaching 6-6 more often. The result? Fewer tiebreaks overall, but when they do happen, they reveal something interesting about who&#8217;s struggling to finish sets cleanly.<\/p>\n<p><em>Main Photo Credit: Susan Mullane-Imagn Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you wondered which tennis players struggled to win matches decisively, you&#8217;re in luck. We present to you the top women who weren&#8217;t able to dominate opponents as often as they&#8217;d like, so they had to resort to winning sets through tiebreaks. It&#8217;s a flawed stat but a fun one, so let&#8217;s break it down. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5393,"featured_media":85553,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,9,4],"tags":[7645,1766,11133,3193,18504,5595,7684,17703,476,1900],"class_list":["post-94159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-news","category-wta","tag-anna-kalinskaya","tag-aryna-sabalenka","tag-clara-tauson","tag-dayana-yastremska","tag-diana-shnaider","tag-elena-rybakina","tag-hailey-baptiste","tag-linda-noskova","tag-naomi-osaka","tag-sofia-kenin"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5393"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94159"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94265,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94159\/revisions\/94265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}