When Aryna Sabalenka needed an antidote to the suffocating weight of a Grand Slam near-miss, she did not retreat to a practice court or review match tape. She traveled 2,500 miles away from London's Centre Court to a beach in Mykonos, Greece, trading her racquets for seven uninterrupted days of swimming, reading, lounging, and entirely stepping away from the sport.
The vacation was born out of exhaustion. Just two days prior to her island getaway, the world No. 1 had fallen in a three-set heartbreaker to Amanda Anisimova in the Wimbledon semifinals. While reaching the finals of both the Australian Open and the French Open, alongside 1000-level titles in Miami and Madrid, would constitute a dream season for nearly anyone else on tour, Sabalenka could not shake the gnawing disappointment of falling short on the major stage. The unrelenting globe-trotting grind had taken a severe toll on her body and mind.
“The rest was much-needed,” Sabalenka reflected at Sobeys Stadium during the lead-up to the North American hard-court swing. “I suffered during the summer swing a lot with my body and mentally also a little bit.”
That rare pause gave the 27-year-old Belarusian the clarity to process a turbulent year. In moments of peak pressure—such as her tight losses to Madison Keys in Melbourne or Coco Gauff in Paris—she found herself second-guessing her decisions, letting doubts creep in instead of trusting the formidable baseline game that defines her career. Sitting under the Mediterranean sun, she realized her tactical approach required a mental shift.
“It really gave me time to think about my approach for the big matches, the mentality I have, the mentality I need, and how it's different than the matches before, and what needs to stay the same,” Sabalenka told ESPN. “I realize I need to respect my opponent a little bit more, really fight for every point, but also I have to respect myself more too. Sometimes I think I completely forget about who I am and what I went through and that I'm really strong enough to handle literally anything.”
That resilience has been forged through profound personal and professional trials: the sudden loss of her father in 2019, the tragic passing of her former partner Konstantin Koltsov in 2024, a debilitating bout with the service yips in 2022 that nearly drove her to quit the sport, and intense media scrutiny. Yet, rather than letting pressure fracture her focus in New York, Sabalenka is leaning into the comfort of hard courts—her favorite surface—and a renewed determination to rewrite history.
Defending a title at Flushing Meadows is no small feat. No player has captured back-to-back women's singles titles at the US Open since Serena Williams completed her historic “three-peat” from 2012 to 2014. Sabalenka is acutely aware of the statistical mountain in front of her, but she meets the challenge with a blend of humor and competitive defiance.
“I was trying to ignore that statistic. My thought is to change that. My hope, I’d say,” Sabalenka told reporters. “But, wow, that’s insane, you know, how unpredictable women’s tennis is, right? Should we change it? Should we at least try to change it?”
Her campaign in New York has already tested that resolve. During a nervy Arthur Ashe Stadium night session against Polina Kudermetova, Sabalenka dropped her opening service game and required a tense tiebreak to clinch the first set before asserting her dominance 7-6(4), 6-2. It was far from flawless, but it highlighted an evolving maturity: instead of rushing for perfection upon her return, she embraces the initial uncomfortableness of finding her rhythm.
“Nowadays I just take it easy, I'm not rushing things,” Sabalenka noted. “We're not going crazy on intensity. We're just slowly trying to remind my body, 'Okay, this is what you actually do for a living.' And with this mindset, one, two hits and you feel the rhythm of the movement, the feeling of the ball, back.”
Analytically, Sabalenka's success in New York hinges on the stability of her backhand and her ability to shorten points by transitioning to the net, a tactic that yielded lethal efficiency during her opening rounds. While former world No. 4 and ESPN analyst Mary Joe Fernandez has noted that her backhand has occasionally let her down during recent weeks, Sabalenka's capacity to take the racquet out of any opponent's hand remains unmatched when her baseline aggression clicks.
Beyond the singles draw, Sabalenka is also slated to partner with Novak Djokovic in mixed doubles ahead of the singles fortnight, a pairing she admits she is approaching purely for the fun and competitive intensity it provides.
As she stares down the final Grand Slam of the season, Sabalenka has made peace with the unpredictable nature of tennis. Whether she hoists the trophy once more or walks away empty-handed, the perspective gained under the sun in Mykonos has ensured that her overarching trajectory remains anchored in strength rather than self-doubt.
“Of course ideally I would love to finish the season with a Grand Slam and world No. 1,” Sabalenka said. “But I think if this goal is not achieved, I'll still think that this season has been really amazing for me. All of those tough lessons that I learned this season are only going to make me stronger for the next one.”
Sources
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- D'Arcy Maine original
- flashscore.com original
- Canadian Press original
- AFP original
- Reuters original
- wtatennis.com original
- reuters.com original
