Beetle-browed professors of profound tennis truths will tell you… progress is never linear. Aryna Sabalenka might nod in agreement as she reflects on her year to date.
How bad can it be, you might reasonably ask, given that she captured her maiden Grand Slam crown at the Australian Open? What with her victory in Adelaide three weeks earlier, the start of 2023 was shaping up as a new springboard of confidence for a player who previously had been plagued by inconsistency. That 11-match streak at the turn of 2021-22, when she delivered 152 double faults at an average of 14 a match, was consigned to the memory dustbin.
To say only that Sabalenka hasn’t won another title since Melbourne is a simplification, given that she made finals in Indian Wells, Stuttgart and Madrid. Nothing erratic there, even allowing for a couple of unexpected straight sets defeats peppering the mix – to 74th-ranked Sorana Cirstea in the Miami quarter-finals, and to No.134 Sofia Kenin at the first hurdle in Rome.
It was the story that unfolded in Paris a month ago which was so unexpected. For five matches, 25-year-old Sabalenka looked thrillingly indomitable. The oft-referenced stat that a player “has yet to lose a set” can sometimes be a red herring, true one moment before being obliterated in defeat the next. Yet she looked to be on course for a thrilling championship showdown with Iga Swiatek, Nos.1 and 2 in the world battling it out on the red dirt, just as they had weeks earlier in Madrid, when the Pole edged a three-setter.
But come the semi-final, Karolina Muchova, then ranked 43, put a stop to all that. From 2-5 and match point down in the deciding set, the injury-plagued Czech was ice cool, snapping off five straight games for a rampant victory. It was exactly the kind of reverse Sabalenka looked to have stamped out in Melbourne, building a wall between her new self and the mercurial days of old. Yet here it was, playing out again as the match went away from her.
Afterwards Sabalenka focused only on the positive, pointing out that it was still her career-best run at Roland-Garros. But BBC tennis analyst Annabel Croft makes no bones about it. “That defeat was devastating,” says Croft. “It will be very difficult to overcome.”
Since then the world No.2’s Wimbledon warm-up in Berlin was brought to a juddering halt when Veronika Kudermetova bested her as early as the last 16. Yet Croft’s expectations of Sabalenka remain high for the coming Fortnight.
“She loves Wimbledon and has said how much she missed it last year, when she was unable to play,” says Croft. “She reached the 2021 semis here, and in doing that she successively defeated the two women who contested the 2022 final – Ons Jabeur in the last 16 and Elena Rybakina in the quarters. So you can see how good she is on grass.
“Her game is all-out power – get your crash helmets out. When she’s on, she’s unbelievable. She’s also a very good doubles player [with two Grand Slam titles alongside Elise Mertens], so she knows how to volley and transition forward. Unless she goes out early in a big upset, the deeper she goes in the draw, the more dangerous her power game makes her.”
Sabalenka will open her fifth Wimbledon campaign against an unfamiliar opponent, Hungary’s Panna Udvardy, ranked 82.
“I really like to play at Wimbledon,” says Sabalenka. “I like the feeling of grass and I think my game is suited to it. I enjoy the atmosphere. I can’t wait to show my best tennis.”
She might like to save a special dollop of that “best tennis” for the fourth round. If the draw and the seedings pan out that far, then – well, waddaya know – Sabalenka will face Karolina Muchova again, just a month after that Parisian defeat. Stock up on the popcorn, everyone.
