The coach of Aryna Sabalenka says the plan for the world No. 1’s schedule during this year’s clay season didn’t work out, and changes will be made in the future.
Jason Stacy, who is Sabalenka’s performance coach, gave insight into how the team plans for the season during an interview with Tennis 365. Stacy has worked alongside the Belarusian since 2018 and has 20 years’ worth of experience in the sport. In the past, he has also worked with Dmitry Tursunov, as well as the Davis Cup and Fed Cup teams of both Russia and Kazakhstan.
“Anton [Dubrov] and I are the ones who discuss what obligations she has, with the agent and the managers. We figure out where she’s at, as far as physically, mentally, emotionally speaking to.” Stacy explained.
“We have a physio now that travels with us, so they’ve been speaking the physio about what they’re working on, what they might, we look at all the different moving parts, look at outcomes from the previous season, where her energy dipped, as far as be able to manage those things, her emotional and mental, and physical energy.
“I’m very, very much involved in what we’re going to do, not do. Ultimately, you know, she makes that final decision, if she’s going to want to or not. She’ll listen to what we have to say, and, usually she’ll just say: You just tell me’, but it’s a tough decision sometimes.”
Sabalenka entered the clay season high in confidence after winning back-to-back titles in Indian Wells and Miami. On the dirt, she played two WTA 1000 events leading up to the French Open. In Madrid, she reached the quarter-finals before suffering a shock loss to Hailey Baptiste, who ousted her in a final-set tiebreaker. Then in Rome, she lost in the second round to Sorana Cirstea.
Heading into Paris, the four-time Grand Slam champion looked to be in good form after winning four matches in a row without dropping a set. However, in the last eight against Diana Shnaider, she imploded on court and went from leading by a set and 4-1 to losing nine games in a row. In the decider, she produced 17 unforced errors and won less than 40% of points behind her serve.
Sabalenka told reporters earlier this week that she contacted her former psychologist to help her address what went wrong in the French capital. In Stacy’s view, part of the issue was her scheduling.
“Clay, we made a decision, we had to, for a couple reasons, and [it] didn’t work out the way we wanted,” he admits.
“Maybe the decision we made, as far as scheduling and timing of certain things in our approach, it sounded good, and we all were bought into it, and we thought it might work really well based on last year’s outcome, but, if you just go based on results, maybe it wasn’t the best plan, so we’ll go back and review what worked, what didn’t work, what maybe we could do differently next season to help prepare better.
“That’s a very, very big part of what I do, which again one of those big 3 E’s (energy, emotions, environment) which is managing energy, which is like that’s our number one priority.”
Sabalenka won her opening match in Berlin on Wednesday by beating Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-4, 6-4. She is aiming to win her first WTA title on grass this week.
