{"id":449558,"date":"2026-02-02T18:01:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T18:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/449558\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T18:01:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T18:01:06","slug":"aryna-sabalenkas-immature-attitude-criticised-by-ex-wta-star-after-australian-open-final-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/449558\/","title":{"rendered":"Aryna Sabalenka&#8217;s &#8216;immature&#8217; attitude criticised by ex-WTA star after Australian Open final loss"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Wimbledon winner Pat Cash assessed that Aryna Sabalenka will have \u201ca lot of things to think about\u201d as he claimed she \u201ccapitulated\u201d in the 2026 Australian Open final.<\/p>\n<p>World No 1 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tag\/aryna-sabalenka\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sabalenka<\/a>, who was competing in her fourth consecutive Australian Open title match, lost 4-6, 6-4, 4-6 to fifth seed Elena Rybakina on Rod Laver Arena.<\/p>\n<p>The 27-year-old Belarusian looked to be closing in on a third Australian Open crown when she led 3-0 in the third set, but she squandered her advantage as she was broken in each of her next two service games.<\/p>\n<p>The four-time Grand Slam champion entered the final having won 11 straight matches and 22 successive sets in a red-hot start to the year that included her title run at the WTA 500 event in Brisbane.<\/p>\n<p>Sabalenka now holds a 4-4 record in Grand Slams finals, and she has lost six of her last 10 finals across all levels of tournaments.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live, Cash struggled to explain Sabalenka\u2019s collapse in the deciding set.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSabalenka was very effective on the first serve in the second set, barely dropping a point when she got the return in,\u201d said the Australian, who is a former world No 4.<\/p>\n<p>Australian Open News<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/australian-open\/aryrna-sabalenka-defeat-setback-australian-open-rusedski\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Aryna Sabalenka has \u2018got a problem\u2019 as former British No 1 raises big concern<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tennis-news\/aryna-sabalenka-reveals-one-regret-australian-open-final-loss-elena-rybakina\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Aryna Sabalenka reveals her one regret about Australian Open final loss to Elena Rybakina<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Want more from Tennis365? Add us as <a rel=\"noopener nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=tennis365.com\" target=\"_blank\">a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRybakina did have some wobbles on her forehand in the semi-final, but other than that it was clean ball-striking.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSabalenka will go away with a lot of things to think about \u2014 she basically capitulated.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Former British No 1 Annabel Croft argued Sabalenka\u2019s mindset in the latter stages of the final was \u201cimmature\u201d and said that the Belarusian \u201cbeat herself up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think the composure Sabalenka had for most of the match got her to 3-0 in the final set,\u201d said the former world No 4.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI felt that she had really taken her game to another level, but she couldn\u2019t keep forging ahead because there was resistance down the other end.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThen the arms started flailing and it got a little bit immature out there.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe wasn\u2019t handling the situation well, she was strutting around and she lost her composure completely.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI felt that Sabalenka really beat herself up in that final set. The minute panic set in she just steamrolled in the wrong direction.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>READ NEXT: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tennis-news\/elena-rybakina-stefano-vukov-coach-relationship-australian-open-andy-roddick\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Andy Roddick gives verdict on Elena Rybakina\u2019s controversial coach after Australian Open win<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wimbledon winner Pat Cash assessed that Aryna Sabalenka will have \u201ca lot of things to think about\u201d as&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":449559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-449558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}