Aryna Sabalenka: ‘I thought I had to just keep going … it damaged my mental health’
World No 2 on grief and stress after former partner’s death and her burgeoning rivalry with Iga Swiatek
Now that she has lived it, endured the struggles and fought back to once again hold a winner’s trophy aloft on the eve of the US Open, Aryna Sabalenka is able to reflect on what has been.
The past two months for the woman now the favourite to triumph at the year’s final grand slam tournament were dominated by a debilitating shoulder injury that ruled her out of playing at Wimbledon.
The few weeks before that were spent battling illness, first when she was laid low in bed for days before the Italian Open, and then struck by a stomach bug that dashed her French Open hopes.
Those physical ailments paled in significance in comparison to the mental turmoil
Those physical ailments paled in significance in comparison to the mental turmoil that preceded them when her ex-boyfriend, the former international ice hockey player and fellow Belarusian Konstantin Koltsov, died in March.
When his death was first announced, Koltsov was widely reported to still be Sabalenka’s partner, until she clarified that “while we were no longer together, my heart is broken”.
Aside from that briefest of statements on social media, and another thanking her fans for support, she has markedly not discussed what she described as an “unthinkable tragedy”, nor has she deviated from her work.
Just as she did after the death in 2019 of her father, Sergey, who was so influential in cultivating her tennis path, Sabalenka devoted herself to hitting balls.
The day after Koltsov died, she practised in full view of the public before the Miami Open. A few days later, she took on her good friend Paula Badosa at that tournament, the only slight acquiescence to the situation being to forgo her usual media duties.
It was little surprise when she made early exits in Miami and the event in Stuttgart that followed.
