Sabalenka, another bagel at the WTA in Berlin: a negative record

At a certain point the deck offers the color change card and playing it can be useful. Aryna Sabalenka must have thought so too, having gone from the bitter red of Roland Garros to the green of the Northern meadows, the one that will lead everyone towards Wimbledon. A change of gear was needed and a historic effect resulted. But on the negative side: the Belarusian, on the lawns of Berlin, became the first number 1 since the women’s ranking existed to lose the third set 6-0 in two consecutive tournaments.

negative record

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Sabalenka’s relationship with the grass game is not exactly synonymous with feeling, if it is true that the Tiger on green has never won a title, ending up defeated twice in as many finals played. But it was difficult to expect another bagel after the one Shnaider earned at Roland Garros. And instead in Germany a real remake took place: Sabalenka checked out in Berlin in the semi-final, losing the decisive set 6-0 against Pegula. The one in which we expected to see them pull out their claws, and instead it was the American who roared. The consequence for Sabalenka is the bitter negative record for a WTA number 1, given the two consecutive bagels between Paris and Berlin which on the women’s circuit, to the detriment of the highest ranked, had never been seen in over fifty years of ranking.

no conference

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Aryna’s crisis obviously did not arise on the German lawns, and perhaps this is precisely why the number 1 did not want to attend the press conference after the defeat against Pegula: the need to reflect and reconsider her current form towards an appointment with Wimbledon which at this point becomes even more delicate. Sabalenka, however, had already confessed her difficulties in the quarter-finals, after the miraculous comeback against Bartunkova who had found herself ahead by a set and 4-0 in the second with the Tiger: “At a certain point I felt that it was really her day. I had no idea what to do”. The showdown between the second and third sets seemed to have chased away the clouds, but in the semi-final the summer storm returned.

psychologist

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Taking another step back, at the beginning of the week, Sabalenka had opened her campaign on grass with these statements in the press conference, referring to the shocking defeat at Roland Garros: “The defeat against Shnaider was a very hard defeat to metabolise, because I understood that I had missed a big opportunity. I thought a lot about that match and I needed time to recover. So after Paris I went to a psychologist: I needed help to not remain a prisoner of that match: it helped me a lot”. Now we need new certainties, at the gates of Wimbledon.