After clinching her maiden Grand Slam title in January, Aryna Sabalenka says she has the belief she is capable of becoming world No.1 but is not focusing on reaching the milestone at Roland Garros.
Sabalenka enters the upcoming French Open as the second seed behind defending champion Iga Swiatek who has held the top position in the WTA rankings continuously since April 4th 2022. The Belrussian is set to drop 130 points from her tally when her ranking points from the 2022 French Open are deducted which is significantly less than reigning champion Swiatek’s total of 2000 points. This places the Pole under immense pressure to retain her position at the top. Even if Sabalenka loses her first round match, she needs to reach the semi-finals to remain No.1.
Besides her Australian Open triumph, the 25-year-old has won two other Tour titles in Adelaide and Madrid. She was also runner-up to Elana Rybakina in Indian Wells and Iga Swiatek in Stuttgart. Overall, she has won 29 out of 34 matches played so far in 2023 with nine of those victories being against top-20 players. Sabalenka has become a formidable force on the Tour but is she ready for the possibility of clinching the No.1 spot in the future?
“Yes, I think so. I think I improved a lot, and I have everything to be No. 1,” she said during her press conference in Paris on Friday.
“But I don’t want to focus on that.”
Sabalenka’s reluctance to focus on the race is out of concern that it could hinder her run at the French Open which is the only Grand Slam where she is yet to reach the second week. In the past three years, she was knocked out in the third round by players who at the time were ranked lower than her.
“Every time I’m focusing on something like points, ranking and results, I’m not playing my best,” she explains. “So I’m trying to focus on myself, on my game, and make sure I bring my best tennis and then we will see after these couple of weeks what gonna happen.”
” I still have to bring my best tennis, and the thing that I have one Grand Slam in my pocket, it’s not going to help me to win this one. Everyone will come and try to beat me. So I have to bring my best tennis every time I’m on the court.”
Sabalenka will begin her French Open campaign against Marta Kostyuk who won her maiden WTA trophy at the ATX Open in Austin earlier this year. It could be a tense encounter between the two players given the current political climate. Sabalenka’s home country is accused of supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine which is where Kostyuk is from.
It is widely expected that no handshakes will take place at the net which is a practice used by various Ukrainian players against Russian or Belarussian players since the outbreak of the war which began on February 24th 2022. A week after the last time Sabalenka played Kostyuk on the Tour.
“If I could I would stop the war,” said Sabalenka.
“And about the no shaking, I can kind of understand them. Like I imagine if they’re going to shake hands with Russians and Belarusians, then they’re gonna get so many messages from their home countries.
“So I kind of understand why they are not doing it. At the same time, I feel like sports shouldn’t be in politics. Like we’re just athletes. If they feel good with no shaking hands, I’m happy with that.”
Should Sabalenka emerge as the new no.1 as a result of her French Open run, she would become the 29th woman to do so since the WTA Tour rankings were introduced in 1975.
