After a crushing loss at the Australian Open final earlier this year, Aryna Sabalenka knew that she was losing her momentum. The ghosts of 2025 WTA Finals were back for good as the World No. 1 lost against a familiar foe in Elena Rybakina. Yet, she didn’t sit on it for long, and on she went to interrogate the “little, but not little, things.” 

She engineered a dramatic turnaround in fortune. That meant being ‘brave enough’ to make a change to her Wilson Blade 98 racket. Rumor has it, the 27-year-old has been wielding a blacked-out part of her racket frame, keeping the details under wraps while letting her game do all the talking.

First, she took control against Rybakina at Indian Wells and went on to dominate the tournament. Now in the Miami Open, she’s carried that momentum forward, not dropping a single set on her way to the quarterfinals.

All thanks to that subtle tweak to her racket, which has given her control and “helped a lot” to neutralize opponents who once targeted the weaker spots in her game. 

However, for the World No. 1, this isn’t uncharted territory. She has pulled off this kind of switch before and made it count.

Last year, after back-to-back heartbreaks at the Roland Garros and Wimbledon, the Belarusian was desperate for a reset. So, she didn’t just tweak her game. She reimagined her weapon.

“I want to play with fire,” she said. And she meant it.

What followed was the creation of her custom ‘Fire Starter’, a reworked Wilson Blade 98 v9, dubbed the “Fighter Edition,” stamped with the mantra: “Made for the fight. Built to conquer.”

As a result, Sabalenka roared back and claimed the US Open title at Flushing Meadows, proving once again that when she makes a change, she means business.

Next at the Miami Open, she’ll face Hailey Baptiste, who has stunned the field with wins over Liudmila Samsonova, Elina Svitolina, and Jelena Ostapenko to reach her first WTA 1000 quarterfinal.

And as the narrative sharpens around Sabalenka’s subtle racket tweak driving her surge, she is far from alone, as others have made similar adjustments and ridden them into winning streaks.

Madison Keys rides racket change to secure maiden Grand Slam title

Only hours after her first Grand Slam final loss in 2017, Madison Keys was still processing the disappointment. When asked what she could have done differently, she smiled and said,

“Win some more games.”

That response captured the pain of falling short on the biggest stage. It was honest, but it also reflected how close she felt to her dream.

Years later, the feeling was different. At the 2025 Australian Open, she defeated Iga Swiatek in the semifinal to reach another final, this time against Aryna Sabalenka.

This time, however, there was no emptiness. Instead, there was clarity and belief built through experience and change. After reaching that final, Keys embraced a bold shift in her approach. One of the biggest changes came through her racket.

“I’m at the later point of my career,” she says. “It just kind of felt like, why not, however many more years I have, be willing to adapt and be a little bit more open to change? I think doing that is a little bit freeing because I think for a really long time I felt like I was so close to doing it a certain way.”

During the 2025 off-season, she made a decisive move. She ended her long partnership with Wilson and switched to Yonex. Her husband, Bjorn Fratangelo, played a key role in guiding those adjustments. He helped her rethink both her equipment and her overall game.

That change paid off in the biggest way. Keys went on to win her first Grand Slam at the Australian Open, defeating Sabalenka in the final.

Now, as Aryna Sabalenka also tweaks her racket setup, the real test begins: will it fuel sustained dominance, or is a major upset looming ahead?