Originally posted by TenebrousWay
I'm not sure, honestly. Satele lost to Malgus but he was already one of the greatest warriors of the empire as an apprentice. She did a little better against an improved version of him later.
There is also the fact that, logically, Satale should have improved her lightsaber skill by quite a bit, on the basis of her power increase during the decades that followed, and her ascendance to become Grand Master of the Order.