Serena Williams excluded: The 5 players with Australian Open hat-tricks Sabalenka could join

Less than a month remains until the start of the Australian Open, where Aryna Sabalenka arrives as the top favourite to claim her third consecutive title. The Belarusian already boasts three Grand Slam titles and recently concluded the season as the World No. 1 for the first time in her career.

At 27 years old, Sabalenka is pursuing a rare achievement in the WTA: winning three consecutive Melbourne crowns—a feat that not even Serena Williams managed. Only five players have accomplished this, the most recent being Martina Hingis 25 years ago when she clinched her third straight trophy in 1999.

The Australian Open holds a special place in Sabalenka’s career, as she won her maiden major title there back in 2023. While she was already established as a top-5 WTA player, she had faltered in three previous Grand Slam semifinals, leading to doubts about her ability to secure a major title.

Sabalenka silenced those doubts by triumphing last season, coming from a set down to defeat Elena Rybakina 4-6, 6-3, 6-4. A year later, she defended her title with a dominant win over Zheng Qinwen, 6-3, 6-2, becoming the first player to achieve back-to-back Australian Open titles since Victoria Azarenka (2012-2013).

The Australian is widely regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time, with an unrivalled 24 Grand Slam titles—more than any other male or female player in history. However, ‘only’ 12 of these came in the Open Era. After the professionalisation of tennis, Margaret Court achieved an Australian Open hat-trick between 1969–1971, contributing to her record 11 titles in Melbourne throughout her illustrious career.

Another legend of Australian tennis, Evonne Goolagong Cawley won 7 Grand Slam titles and was a finalist in seven more. In her three consecutive Australian Open finals, she defeated Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, and Renata Tomanova, overcoming the dominance of Court, who had previously beaten her in the same tournament's finals in 1971 and 1973.

The 22-time Grand Slam champion is an unsurprising presence on this list, emerging in the late '80s to dominate the WTA Tour virtually unopposed for a decade. Despite her stellar career, Australia was statistically her ‘weakest’ Slam, where she claimed ‘only’ four titles, including a run of three straight victories.

In 1988, Steffi Graf played her fourth consecutive Grand Slam final, having won the French Open the previous year but falling in the Wimbledon and US Open finals—both to Martina Navratilova, then in her 30s. This time, she defeated Chris Evert in straight sets to secure just her second major title. She later overcame Helena Sukova and Mary Joe Fernandez in the following years to complete her Australian Open hat-trick. Graf would claim her final Australian Open title in 1994 against Arantxa Sánchez Vicario.

The Yugoslav-born star arguably delivered the most astonishing rise in WTA history. By the time Graf had completed her Australian Open treble (1990), she seemed nearly invincible, having won eight of the previous nine majors she competed in. Then came Monica Seles, a teenage sensation who won her first major at Roland Garros in 1990 at just 16 years old.

Seles followed in Graf’s footsteps by claiming her second major at the 1991 Australian Open, defeating Jana Novotna. She went on to dominate Melbourne’s Centre Court for three straight years, including a memorable 1993 victory over Graf. Tragically, this was her last Grand Slam title before a horrific stabbing incident sidelined her for years.

Martina Hingis remains the last player to achieve three consecutive Australian Open titles, dominating the tournament that suited her game best. She claimed her maiden major title in 1997 by defeating France’s Mary Pierce. Hingis successfully defended her title in 1998 against Conchita Martínez and in 1999 against Amélie Mauresmo—a feat no one has matched since. You can watch Australian Open replays here.

However, Melbourne also brought heartache for Hingis, as she lost the next three finals in a row: in 2000 to Lindsay Davenport, and in 2001 and 2002 to Jennifer Capriati, the latter after squandering four match points.