The key area Elena Rybakina had the edge over Iga Swiatek & Aryna Sabalenka in 2025

Oli Dickson Jefford 25 Nov 2025 7:00 PM

Elena Rybakina waves after a win.

Elena Rybakina’s 2025 season was far from easy, but her campaign ended on a major high with success at the WTA Finals.

After triumphs at the Strasbourg International and Ningbo Open earlier in the year, the 26-year-old made history with an unbeaten campaign at the year-end championships in Riyadh, picking up the biggest official prize money payout in tennis history.

Rybakina’s campaign saw her beat world No 2 Iga Swiatek in the round-robin phase and world No 1 Aryna Sabalenka in the final, victories over two women who both won Grand Slams this season.

However, while they both finished ahead of world No 5 Rybakina in the year-end rankings, the Kazakh was ahead in one key area for 2025: her serve.

Here, we unpack the Kazakh’s sublime service stats — which suggest she could re-establish herself as a leading force in the women’s game across 2026.

Ace Queen

Rybakina has long been recognised as one of the best — if not the best — servers in the women’s game, and she was comfortably clear at the top of the ace standings in 2025.

The Kazakh hit a staggering 516 aces across her 76 matches this past season, averaging out at approximately 6.79 aces per match across the year.

Rybakina was the first woman since Karolina Pliskova in 2016 to hit 500+ aces in an individual season, and was well ahead of the rest of the WTA Tour in this area.

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Second-placed Linda Noskova hit 373 aces across the year, which, while still impressive, puts her 143 aces behind the world No 5.

A total of 358 aces places Clara Tauson in third, with Ekaterina Alexandrova in fourth on 339 aces, and Naomi Osaka rounding out the top five on 307.

Sabalenka and Swiatek were impressively inside the top 10 for the year, with the world No 1 ranking sixth on 302 aces, and the world No 2 ranking eighth with 243 aces.

Double fault differentials

Impressively, Rybakina also hit just 222 double faults compared to her 516 aces, a +294 differential for the year.

Several other players towards the top of the ace standings also had positive differentials, but not close to the numbers the WTA Finals champion produced

Noskova (289 double faults) had a +84 differential for the year, while Tauson (211 double faults) had a +147 differential across her 2025 campaign.

Alexandrova (300 double faults) had a +39 differential, while Osaka (122 double faults) produced a strong +185 differential between her ace and double fault tallies.

Serving 165 double faults for the season, Sabalenka’s differential for the year was a solid +137 for 2025.

However, the margins are much narrower for Swiatek, who had a differential of just +8 after her 243 aces were matched by 235 double faults.

Where else does Rybakina have an advantage?

Cheap points on serve ultimately make it more likely for a player to hold serve, and that certainly proved to be the case for Rybakina in 2025.

The Kazakh held in 82.5% of her service games for the season, the second-highest tally on tour.

However, the woman ahead of her — world No 325 Lucie Havlickova — contested just two tour-level matches this season, making Rybakina the de facto leader in this statistic.

Sabalenka (77.8%) and Swiatek (76.6%) also placed well in this area, ranking fourth and sixth, respectively; they were separated by Osaka, who ranked fifth with 77.5% of service games won.

Rybakina ranks top of the charts of first serve points won in 2025, with 74.6% of points won behind her first serve across the year.

Swiatek (69.4%) and Sabalenka (68.4%) rank in 18th and 25th place in this statistic, respectively, though — rather interestingly — both women had a higher first serve percentage than the Kazakh.

Sabalenka had a first serve percentage of 62.7% and Swiatek sits on 61.7%, with Rybakina behind on 57.7% for the season.

However, for overall serve points won, Rybakina is back up to 64.4% for the year — once again, only ranking behind Havlickova.

Osaka (63%), Sabalenka (61.8%), and Swiatek (61.7%) rank fourth, fifth, and sixth, respectively, in this area.